'Great horror fiction is almost always allegorical,' King writes, and Jack Ketchum is a writer who knows from the outset what he wants to say and how best to say it. In 'The Box,' a young boy, his sisters, and eventually his mother lose their appetites and their will to survive after the boy looks inside a stranger's mysterious box.Īs you delve deeper into the volume, you begin to appreciate the scope of Ketchum's considerable talent, the importance of theme and the writer's intent. The pain is rekindled threefold in a surprise ending. 'Gone' is the tragic story of a mother whose daughter is abducted. Two of the stories found here, 'Gone' and 'The Box,' received the Bram Stoker Award in short fiction. Ketchum explores taboos and unsettling social and cultural issues, including sexual abuse, child molestation, madness, revenge, incest, guilt and redemption, stripping away facades and revealing the human heart in all its ugliness and beauty. There are stories of the surreal, a vampire tale, and a western. Subjects range from horror to suspense, science fiction to dark humor. Jack Ketchum, author of The Lost, Red, Broken on the Wheel of Sex, Off Season, and numerous other novels and short stories, is known for his diversity, and the thirty-two stories found here are no exception. And while some of the stories may scare us, some of them, he tells us, have 'something else on their mind, too.'

But the title is not ironic, Ketchum explains in his introduction. They are as dark and disturbing as speculative fiction can be. Steven King once wrote, 'a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.' If that is true, Jack Ketchum gives readers coffins full of kisses in Peaceable Kingdom.ĭon't be misled by the title the stories in this collection are anything but peaceable.

Jack ketchum the box pdf