The End of the End of Everything

by Dale Bailey

Dale Bailey's new collection, The End of the End of Everything, is filled with hope. As we rush headlong toward a "Choose Your Own Apocalypse" future, Bailey hangs back, refusing to let go of the indelible ferocity of the human heart. His stories are filled with the vibrant sound of those hearts, always beating. There is the Creature from the Black Lagoon, who is more human than any of those he meets in Hollywood; Eleanor, who works at the End-of-the-World Café, and who sees the depravity and despair of the Pit every day, yet never gives up hope for her ailing child; and young Tom, lost in a world scorched by the sun, who follows the rumor of angels still hanging on the wind.

Reminiscent of Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson, Dale Bailey mixes the macabre in with his melancholy, crafting stories that linger long after their reading. He sees a dark world that is growing darker, but he carries with him a light that refuses to go out.

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Fantasy, Short Story Collection, Fiction, Dark Fantasy, Science Fiction

227 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2015

About the author

Dale was born in West Virginia in 1968, and grew up in a town called Princeton, just north of the Virginia line. His stories have appeared in lots of places—The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, Sci-Fiction, Lightspeed Magazine, and various anthologies. Several of them have been nominated for awards, and “Death and Suffrage,” later filmed as part of Showtime’s television anthology series Masters of Horror, won the International Horror Guild Award.

In 2003, Golden Gryphon Press collected his stories as The Resurrection Man’s Legacy and Other Stories. Two novels, The Fallen and House of Bones, came out from Signet books around the same time. A third novel—Sleeping Policemen, written with with his friend Jack Slay, Jr.—came out in 2006. He has also written a study of haunted-house fiction called American Nightmares.

He lives in North Carolina with his wife and daughter.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of dark, heartbreaking, visionary short fiction. Bailey excels in both imagination and with the ordinary human moments that both ground and lift his speculative tales. Great stuff.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection was a finalist for the 2015 Shirley Jackson Award for a single-author collection. These stories blend horror, dark fantasy, and humor to great success. The title story and the feral girl scouts are probably my favorites.

I was not surprised that the author thanked Nathan Ballingrud for giving him feedback because I feel the styles are similar, with people central to the horror.

[D. Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

What else to say but god-fuckin'-damn. What a fantastic collection, filled with deep, dark stories that still manages to avoid broodiness in favor of a marvelous depth of emotion and an abiding sense of wonder. Sublime.

[Marie-Therese · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read the title story about a year ago, maybe, in some "best of" or Datlow collection. I remember thinking that other readers would love it while I found it superficially impressive but ultimately ugly, cynical, and trying way too hard. Second read here didn't change my mind and, sadly, much of the rest of this collection struck me the same way.

Bailey writes fine prose but so much of what he chooses to write about is not just tired but exhausted. Nobody needs another story about a disappointed, middle-aged man reminiscing about his lonely adolescence and spooky days down at the local swimming hole ('Bluehole'); George Saunders did the whole "let's go back to dinosaur days!" thing much better more years ago than I can count ('Mating Habits of the Late Cretaceous'), and if I never read another long, pointless story about dust storms and farm boys fleeing no future ('A Rumor of Angels'), it will still be too soon. 'The Creature Recants' is a nice story: funny, finely imagined, and poignant (Saunders-like, but in a good way); but then there's stuff like 'Eating at the End of the World Cafe', which is clearly filler, and long, dry, flavourless filler at that. Making me wonder if Bailey just doesn't have enough first-class work written or published to flesh out a full collection.

Everything here is packaged beautifully but it's so far past its expiration date that there isn't much savour left in it once it's unwrapped. I can't recommend this collection for most readers.

[Eric Guignard · Rating 5 out of 5]

My book review for this written here at New York Journal of Books: http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-...

[Gea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This man can tell a story! I am not a huge fan of short stories, but these were excellent. I loved almost all of them, except the very last one--The End of the End of Everything. While it was extremely well written, it was a bit too horrifying and bloody for my tastes. It is certainly a story I wont forget as many here are.

[Paxton Cockrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This hasn't really been a good reading year for me so far, so it took me way longer to finish this than it should have. I do think that it may partially be because a couple of the stories in here just didn't grab me and so I went a couple weeks without picking the book up. Overall I enjoyed more of the stories than I disliked, with a particular fondness for the last three stories. Some of the stories just seemed kind of aimless though, like they weren't sure what they were trying to say or didn't feel fleshed out enough to get their point across.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Who wrote this sappy, disastrous blurb? "the indelible ferocity of the human heart"? And right after, "His stories are filled with the vibrant sound of those hearts, always beating." Urk.

There are good ideas here. More later.

Update: yes, some good ideas, but I don't find that they're developed in surprising/interesting ways. The final story is a good example. I also have some trouble with the cluttered and sometimes unnecessarily clumsy prose; not a problem for Shirley Jackson Award jurors, apparently. Of the 2015 nominees in this category, I'm way more enthusiastic about the Kelly Link and Amelia Gray collections.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, this book. These stories. Dale Bailey makes the end of everything so gorgeous that you forget that you're up to your neck in Armageddon. Whether it's on the peak-oil highways of "Lightning Jack's Last Ride" or the rust belt town of "Bluehole," Bailey's prose sings about the beauty to be found at the end of all things. These stories are sharp and will make you want to hug puppies afterwards, but you will not regret reading them. If Bailey could stick around for the Heat Death of the Universe, whatever he wrote would be gorgeous. Be glad he's here right now.

[Mason Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well-written stories, but somehow not compelling. I read the first few, and didn't feel like finishing the rest. "The End of the World as we Know it" opens the book, and was enjoyable; "The Bluehole" was certainly well-crafted but nothing new, another "friend is eaten in the mysterious lake everyone thinks has a monster in it" story; "The Creature Recants" wanted to be clever but didn't work for me; and I decided I was done a little ways into the next story. Just not a collection for me, I think.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated these short stories by spacing them out over a couple of weeks. My favorites -- "The Bluehole" which evoked Lovecraft and the intangible feeling the dog days of summer in the North brings, and "Troop 9" which horrified me and drew me in at the same time.

[Mathew · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good. Title story is god damn masterful.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I returned for the Bluehole. I really love the mix of coming of age story and the Tragedy. I do wish Jeremy hadn't been such a limp fish.

[E.A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Dale Bailey because his prose makes me want to write and when his stories speak to me, they sing.

I only connected with some of the stories in this collection - "The Bluehole," "A Rumor of Angels," and "Eating at the End-of-the-World Cafe" - and I'm not wholly certain what differentiates them from the other stories. It might be as simple as my connection to the characters. Once I look past Bailey's prose, his characters all possess a realness I find compelling. It keeps me reading even when I don't like them or I'm tired of their type: i.e., Ben Devine in the title story, yet another middle-aged mediocre white-guy writer who has affairs with co-eds and navel gazes about his own mediocrity. I've read enough of those stories. I wanted to love "Troop 9," but I think it would have been an ideal story for me if it was written by a woman, about women (I'm thinking in particular of Ellen Klages, and recalling her story "Woodsmoke") instead of being about men in the end. I can see and appreciate the things Bailey is doing in these stories, the ways he interrogates the tropes, uses Ben as a lens for the world-goes-to-ruin scenario, uses John Hardesty to explore the effects or war and toxic masculinity on women and a community in a place and a time, but I'd rather read those stories through the gazes of different people, like Tom and Lily ("Rumor of Angels") or Eleanor ("Eating at the End-of-the-World Cafe").

But that prose is so smooth and lovely, those ideas and details strange and alluring. Goddamn if I don't want to grab everything Bailey's written and gobble it up.

[De Lijkendanser · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dale his stories are very hit or miss. The first story starts off very bleak and grim, which I enjoy a lot. The second one becomes a borefest with a weird twist. Some of these stories are quite scary to read but most of them are very dull or even too romantic.

In terms of horror these stories are either hit or miss and most of them miss.

The ones that I liked best are the first story, The one about the End of the world diner and The End of the End of Everything. The rest was all a miss for me.

[Babbs]

Deliberately not rating this one. The stories were varied and fairly good but I just don't think short story collections like this are for me. They always feel unfinished to me, or leave me wanting more and thus enjoy each story less no matter how well written. I knew that going in, but all the reviews seemed so positive I decided to give it a try anyway. That's on me.

[Ana Sofía Siqueiros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something I didn’t expect to LOVE

[Sadie Sublousky · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I hope for in a short story book. Each story was captivating, especially the self titled. Ominous but not scary. Would recommend.

[Marcheto Marcheto · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars
I had previously read the opening and closing stories of this collection, and I thought they were really good: strange, atmospheric, original, disturbing, well-written, even poetic at times. But I didn’t expected that the level of the rest of the pieces in this book would be so high, and that I would even find a couple of stories that I would like as much or even more than those two: the wonderful “The Creature Recants), a perfect tribute to “The Creature from the Black Lagoon”, and the Steinbeckian “A Rumor of Angels”.
These are not the typical horror stories, and that’s why I would dare to recommend this book to anyone, because although these stories may be dark and disturbing, it’s an outstanding collection.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories with a theme being the end of the world. The stories show a variety of ends, from the end of current society to the end of the dinosaurs. Some of the stories are fascinating, such as Troop 9, others I was not a fan of.

[Hugo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quiet, literate stories about people who find themselves (and/or Find Themselves) in strange, horrific, or apocalyptic situations, some of them everyday. Bailey has a knack for simply inhabiting character, even in the tales which seem on the surface retreads or archetypes.

[Sara]

I read snow and that make my soul cold.here a collection of sci~fic damn horror fantase master work short storys.iamnt in fantasy thing but here i read all.somthing inside me tell stope read it but i cant .its still gd to read.

[Gary Broyhill · Rating 5 out of 5]

www.dalebailey.com