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Tribulations Paperback – April 9, 2016

by Richard Thomas (Author), Stephen Graham Jones (Introduction)

4.7 13 ratings

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In the third short story collection by Richard Thomas, Tribulations, the stories cover a wide range of dark fiction--from fantasy, science fiction and horror, to magical realism, neo-noir, and transgressive fiction. The common thread that weaves these tragic tales together is suffering and sorrow, and the ways we emerge from such heartbreak stronger, more appreciative of what we have left--a spark of hope enough to guide us though the valley of death. Fireflies and wolves, ghosts and golems, tentacled beasts and demonic spirits--these psychological thrillers will hypnotize you as they slide the blade between your ribs, up close and personal, whispering in your ear as you gasp and pull them closer. Tribulations includes 25 short stories--including two that were long-listed for Best Horror of the Year. There are also five original full-page illustrations by Luke Spooner.

"The stories Richard Thomas tells are dark rooms. Sometimes they are filled with terrors--ghosts and jealousies and strange beasts. Sometimes they are empty. And this might be the most terrifying thing of all. At times sharp and biting and other times dreamy and lyrical, Thomas is a powerful writer and Tribulations is a stellar collection."
--Kristi DeMeester, author of Split Tongues

"Tribulations is a dark fiction collection for all readers. No matter your preference: this book ducks, dives, and bounces between genres like an Olympic skier taking on a hillside of slalom. Rarely is reading a collection straight-through as eclectic (or purely enjoyable) an experience. If you're not already a fan of Thomas: prepare to be."
--AdamCesare, author of Zero Lives Remaining

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Tribulations shows that Richard Thomas not only knows his craft, but excels in it. Readers owe Richard Thomas a letter to thank him for sharing his brilliant work, and Richard Thomas owes readers a letter to apologize for giving them more reasons to never turn off the light"--Cultured Vultures.

"Richard Thomas does this thing where he introduces us to his friends, folks just like you or me, good, hard-working, honest folks. People we can relate to on many levels. And then, for whatever reason, he drops them right into the middle of hell. Maybe he just enjoys making them suffer. Maybe he knows that we enjoy watching. Whatever the case, with Tribulations he has let us get a little closer, made the glass between us and the suffering a little thinner, and reminded us that we just might be next in line."--Horrornews.net

"At his best Thomas writes like his life depends on it, while his restraint and careful use of language ensure that these stories hit in all the right places. Whether it's with a dash of stream-of-consciousness here, a bit of prose poem there, or a starkly minimalist passage, these stories speak to the things that haunt the darkest corners of the mind."--Hellnotes

"Richard Thomas is on the cutting edge of neo-noir fiction and I dare anyone to say different. Tribulations is his best yet: elegantly twisted, superbly creepy, and dripping darkness. This is required reading for anyone into the shadow side of literature."--Dread Central

About the Author

Richard Thomas is the author of six books-Disintegration and Breaker (Random House Alibi), Transubstantiate (Otherworld Publications); two short story collections, Staring Into the Abyss (Kraken Press) and Herniated Roots (Snubnose Press); and one novella of The Soul Standard (Dzanc Books). With over 100 stories published, his credits include Cemetery Dance, PANK, Gargoyle, Weird Fiction Review, Midwestern Gothic, Arcadia, storySouth, Qualia Nous, Chiral Mad 2 & 3, Gutted and Shivers VI. He has won contests at ChiZine and One Buck Horror, and has received five Pushcart Prize nominations to date. He is also the editor of four anthologies: The New Black and Exigencies (Dark House Press), The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers (Black Lawrence Press) and Burnt Tongues (Medallion Press) with Chuck Palahniuk and Dennis Widmyer. In his spare time, he is a columnist and teacher at LitReactor, an instructor at the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and Editor-in-Chief at Dark House Press. His agent is Paula Munier at Talcott Notch. For more information, visit www.whatdoesnotkillme.com.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crystal Lake Publishing (April 9, 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 234 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1944787771
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1944787776
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.1 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.06 x 0.49 x 7.81 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,164,348 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,829 in Horror Anthologies (Books)
- #8,049 in Fantasy Anthologies

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4.7 13 ratings

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Richard Thomas

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(Art by Erik Wilson) Richard Thomas is the award-winning author of seven books: three novels—Disintegration and Breaker (Penguin Random House Alibi), as well as Transubstantiate (Otherworld Publications); three short story collections—Staring into the Abyss (Kraken Press), Herniated Roots (Snubnose Press), and Tribulations (Cemetery Dance); and one novella in The Soul Standard (Dzanc Books). With over 150 stories published, his credits include The Best Horror of the Year (Volume Eleven), Cemetery Dance (twice), Behold!: Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders (Bram Stoker winner), PANK, storySouth, Gargoyle, Weird Fiction Review, Midwestern Gothic, Shallow Creek, The Seven Deadliest, Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Qualia Nous, Chiral Mad (numbers 2-4), PRISMS, Pantheon, and Shivers VI (with Stephen King and Peter Straub). He has won contests at ChiZine and One Buck Horror, has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, and has been long-listed for Best Horror of the Year six times. He was also the editor of four anthologies: The New Black and Exigencies (Dark House Press), The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers (Black Lawrence Press) and Burnt Tongues (Medallion Press) with Chuck Palahniuk. He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and Thriller awards. In his spare time he is a columnist at Lit Reactor. He was the Editor-in-Chief at Dark House Press and Gamut Magazine. His agent is Paula Munier at Talcott Notch. For more information visit www.whatdoesnotkillme.com.

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Kate Bell

Fabulous collection of heart-stopping stories

Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2018

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Dark fiction enthralls, even as it repels. The best of it always leads me to the edge of a frightening abyss, then rips my heart out and tosses it into the emotional maelstrom beneath my feet. Go fish. I dive in eagerly, even fiercely. Eventually I recover my heart, but it’s altered now, and will never be quite the same again.

TRIBULATIONS is that kind of reading experience. This gorgeously written anthology by Richard Thomas contains 25 compelling stories of misery, terror, anguish, despair and death, peopled with characters you’ve probably met—somewhere, at some time—as well as with those you hope you never do. All for your reading pleasure. Mr. Thomas has turned horror into a banquet of sensory delight served on ice shards. His prose is both searing and lyrical. It cuts and blisters even as it intoxicates. It will force you to take deep breaths and exhale slowly. The innocent, the naïve, the vulnerable, the deluded, the betrayed and the lost stalk the pages of this book with their gut-wrenching delusions, sorrowful fantasies, destructive secrets and mind-numbing pathologies paraded in one form or another. I kept returning to the feast long after I was sated, wondering if I’d missed something vital, even hopeful, and relished second helpings in particular of the surreal, the abnormal, and the magical realism stories in this lineup. The great surrealist writer and poet Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said that authors can write anything they want to—as long as their readers will believe it. I believed it all.

Can’t wait to read more from this author.

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Theodor Brennan

A collection of absolute bangers

Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2022

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Original and creative takes on horror and noir. I loved this collection. Works great as a gateway drug for his latest collection Spontaneous Human Combustion. Some standouts for me are: "Flowers for Jessica," "Vision Quest," and "Shackled to the Shadows." But I thought they were all exemplary.

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mark spears

Will be reading Thomas' other works.

Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2018

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Having read well over a hundred short story or anthology collections, I have to say Tribulations is one of the best I've had the pleasure of reading. I felt like I could be any one of the characters in his stories. I think that's the sign of a great writer and great stories--can you identify with the character and or the story. Take for example Thomas' story, Chrysalis. The guy in the story unwrapped all the Christmas presents for his wife and kids and sold them. I won't reveal why, but as the story comes to a close, you see that he had a damn good reason. Quite often the stories reminded me of the theme music from Jaws, the way it starts out slow, builds, builds some more, and then wham!

The stories also make you think instead of just blindly reading and glazing over. Once again, a sign of great writing. I found myself trying to figure out, with the characters, just how to continue despite how bleak things appeared. Several of the stories reminded me of the writing of Thomas Ligotti, though there appeared to be influences from both horror and literary writers.

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M. Fraser

uncomfortable in a really good way. You know that way..

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2016

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Richards Thomas’s Tribulations made me very uncomfortable, in a really good way. You know that way, the way you feel when you know you shouldn’t be doing something. The stories twist through every emotion. Dark building suspense which made me sit up straight and breath heavy sighs. It’s a book that makes you wriggle in your chair. The stories are packed tightly with compressed meaningful words that leave you satiated. Glittered with surprising romantic gems and families enduring frightening turmoil, the main characters seem desperate to try to be the hero in their own frightening nightmare.

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tonyp

Buy it. You will not be disappointed.

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2017

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Great Anthology! One of the best collection of short stories I've read in years. The characters are relatable, the mood hypnotic and the writing draws you in. The stories are quick and compact with a punch. The pace of most stories is just quick enough to evoke the feeling of a dream which is just beyond your control so even if you think you know where the story is headed you still cannot quite get comfortable. If you like this genre, you will definitely like this collection.

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pvlimbaugh

Dark Tales!

Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2016

Sometimes we need a little darkness in our lives to fully appreciate the light. Richard Thomas gives us that and so much more in his collection of short stories.Tribulations is a book to savor, don’t try reading it all at once… you may not be able to climb back out of the despair found here.

You will find people here prepared for the worse that life can throw at them, and you know what? It doesn’t matter, nothing is going to help. There are no knights in shining armor just grim reality. Normal people with everyday concerns looking for something better, only there isn’t anything else. Just the lot you’re dealt with.

Yep, this book is filled with the worst type of horror, stories of no hope, no redemption. Thomas weaves through these lives with a deft hand. Cold reality slapping you in the face, and yet, you’ll find yourself wanting more. Why? Because deep down you know these stories make your life seem so much better.

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Joseph-wordsmith

Tribulations is a modern masterpiece from an artificer of the craft

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 4, 2016

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‘What’s your earliest memory?’

So a young girl is asked by her grandfather at the end of the world, and her answer, like much of what is contained in the pages of Tribulations, will surprise you. This short story collection by Richard Thomas, released earlier in 2016, is something of a miraculous rarity, a collection that is as thematically unified as it is diverse in its explorations, as coherently stylised as it is eclectic in voice. There is increasingly a trend in the music world for the album which is a collection of songs, far flung from the days of Origins of Symmetry, where an album hung together like stanzas in a ballad. The same is mirrored in the literary world, with many short story collections functioning more like a timeline of stories penned by the same author. Tribulations is different, and stands out as such, but it is not only the thematic unity which sets it apart, but also the deft, confident handling of narrative prose which marks a real master at work.

There are 25 stories in this collection, which is quite a considerable number (and I must say that fact made me nervous initially, as there is definitely such a thing as too much); thankfully, this is not an issue for several reasons. Firstly, the stories are compact and to the point – this is a far cry from the bordering-on-novella stories of King. Expect your “punchline” quickly and expect it hard and in the guts. Secondly, the stories are all written with a captivating atmosphere that draws you in, making you want to read on as though there was a singular narrative to follow. I’ve quoted it before and I will quote it again, as Dean Koontz once said in his introduction to Songs of the Dying Earth: ‘I can forgive a writer many faults if he has the capacity to weave a warp and weft of mood from page one to the end of his story.’ And Richard Thomas can certainly do that, with scintillating, rhythmic prose that casts a kind of hypnotic spell.

Mood is all-important to horror, and in this way Richard Thomas creates the perfect eerie atmosphere to his tales. Neo-noir would be one way to describe it, the sense of lives desiccated of colour, morality, the deepened shadows of the protagonist’s environs, the sense of criminal intent just below the surface of things. This atmosphere particularly comes across in tales such as Chrysalis (which will have you sweating with tension), Misty (which oozes a sense of degradation) and Shackled to the Shadows (which takes you into what feels like a mind in dream-state).

However, this frightening, intense atmosphere is never at the expense of real, deep emotional feeling. If you’ve ever read a Best American Short Stories collection, you will know that the American writers are, generally, much better at striking to the emotional heart of things than we Brits, who are over-conscious of avoiding sentiment to the point of Freudian repression. Richard Thomas demonstrates his lineage from this US tradition and delivers some powerful emotional punches that are memorable and original. Stories such as Vision Quest and On a Bent Nail Head in particular will leave you emotionally drained and more profoundly than that, will deliver a deep catharsis for you. I do not know if Richard Thomas has experienced a deep personal loss, and it would be impertinent for me to ask, but he certainly delivers bone-deep insight into what loss does to your mind, how it alters perception, behaviour, and ultimately, belief systems about the universe we inhabit. The supernatural current, constantly at the edge of detection much like in True Detective, is at once a brilliant observation on the reality of how we experience the world (which is often not logical or orderly) and a commentary on how grief, rage, regret can change the way in which our world operates, catalysting the apparent incursion of demonic, or seemingly demonic, forces.

The mark of a great collection, however, in my humble view, is not that the whole collection leaves an impression, but rather that one or two outstanding stories, stories so powerful you will never forget them, are framed by other exemplary works. Think of it like the stand out track on an album: Tunnel of Love on Dire Strait’s Making Movies, where we step from rock ‘n’ roll into the realms of epic. Stephen King’s Night Shift was full of brilliant, memorable stories, Strawberry Spring, Gray Matter, Graveyard Shift to name a few, but it was The Woman in the Room that left people gobsmacked, that showed us beneath King's humble veneer of 'I'm like you but I just got the gift of the gab', there might be a literary giant, a second Homer, waiting to burst into the stratosphere and change how we think about stories. Like the master, there are stand out stories in Richard Thomas’ collection that must be mentioned: Little Red Wagon is a masterpiece in which a seemingly innocuous motif returns to goose-bump-raising effect, leaving you with a final image and question so powerful it makes you feel bloodless. I immediately had to re-read this story upon finishing it to determine whether my interpretation was correct and to piece together the subtle evidence in the narrative. I am still left with questions, but this is a good thing. A good writer knows when not to spell it out.

Misty also deserves a special mention for its ingenious subversion of what I call the ‘turn of the screw’ genre (after Henry James’ chilling ghost-story masterpiece). The concept, in brief, is that each successive turn of the screw makes the story worse, more frightening, more dreadful, more compelling, as you drill down to some final focal point of absolute horror. Richard Thomas subverts this in Misty by giving us a final turn of the screw that is at once unexpected, chilling and intelligently tapping into societal concerns and expectations. This could almost be considered the beginnings of creating a new subdivision of horror, as the type of horror I experienced reading this story is so different from any other I’ve encountered; in an age where we are de-sensitised by the graphic nature of TV, pornography and news broadcasts, it is a triumph to create a narrative that can still evoke a new type of horror.

As you know, it is traditional for me to make critical comments on a piece I review, regardless of how much I enjoyed it. It is honestly difficult to come up with anything in this instance, as Tribulations is clearly a meticulously crafted modern masterpiece, but if I did have one concern, it was that at times a couple of the stories felt like they were too focused on eliciting an emotional response as opposed to telling the story itself. Dance, Darling, for example, was perhaps my least favourite of all the stories, because, in my humble view (and I am not a master like Richard Thomas), it was too focused on inducing pathos for its suffering characters rather than reaching some climactic or revelatory point of narrative. However, this comment may be more a case of personal taste than anything else.

Lastly, I’d like to talk about the unity of Tribulations. How do the stories pull together? They pull together because of recurrent echoes, images, themes, events. You will start to notice three or four stories in that a certain woman seems to be an echo of another woman, but slightly different. A certain child stares with the same intensity as another. There are even some stories which appear to dovetail in terms of their narratives, such as Fireflies and Playing With Fire, but then again, it could be my mind playing tricks on me. This collection will do that to you, make you see things which aren’t there, which incidentally is another thematic strand running through the whole thing, particularly well captured in the paranoia of Chasing Shadows.

Tribulations is cutting edge both in execution, theme and setting, but it is also classic in that there is a mastery on display here, a surety of hand in the direction and intention of the stories. Poetic and magical at all times, but down to earth in the way it reflects the tribulations of everyday people. It is refreshing that in the midst of a world in which increasingly the focus is on issues - political, societal, topical – that a great writer can remind us the best writing is timelessly about people, feelings and experiences. Basically, to shed light on the tribulations and triumphs of being alive.

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