By WRATH JAMES WHITE (Two Fisted Books; 2005)
Wrath James White: a world-class heavyweight kickboxer and self-proclaimed Bad Motherfucker who also writes horror fiction, the man is a sick fuck, but also a disciplined and erudite storyteller. I’m not convinced Wrath (his preferred handle) is a great writer, but I do find his work riotously compelling.
Wrath’s publications include two collaborative novellas, TERATOLOGIST and POISONING EROS, co-authored with Ed lee and Monica J. O’Rourke, respectively, as well as the solo novel SUCCULENT FLESH, the novella HIS PAIN and this collection. The fifteen stories contained in THE BOOK OF A THOUSAND SINS are fairly representative of Wrath’s work, being energetic and focused to a fault, and exhibiting an unnerving willingness to gaze unblinkingly into the darkest depths of madness, mutilation and sexual deviance.
“He Who Increases Knowledge,” which kicks off the book, is about a man who literally finds God in a Mexican whorehouse. It introduces a quasi-religious slant that runs through many of the stories, including the final tale, “No Questions Unanswered,” a sci fi-tinged piece in which a scientist builds a machine that kills God, leaving him (and us) to deal with the fallout.
More fun is had in “More Maggots,” in which a guy contracts a flesh-rotting disease and so has to bathe in a tub-full of maggots in a desperate attempt at combating the rot. An overt vein of social commentary is featured in “Couch Potato,” which opens with a quote by Shelby Gull—“Stare into an American’s eyes…Most likely there will be nothing but a mere reflection of a television glaring back at you”—and continues with the depraved account of a devastated man who comes to confuse reality with what he sees on his TV set, leading to an inevitable killing rampage.
The ugly specter of child abuse is dealt with in “The Sooner They Learn,” whose deranged old man protagonist decides to teach errant children a lesson in pain. Terrorism is addressed in “Dialogue Between a Priest and A Dying Man,” in which the eponymous priest deals an unspeakable, though appropriate, dose of vengeance to an Islamic terrorist, with the parting words “Ashes the Ashes, you son of a bitch!”
Zombies are a favored part of Wrath’s lexicon. There’s one in “Don’t Scream” a mean little number about an asshole who kills his girlfriend because she won’t give him head “for the 365th time that year,” only to have her come back as a rotting corpse who gives him what he desires—and much more. In “Resurrection Day” a ghetto dweller has to deal with the fact that the dead are rising and heading back to their homes, forcing the living to adopt some decidedly extreme measures. The nutjob protagonist of “My Very Own” tries to turn a person into a zombie a la Jeffrey Dahmer, but gets a bit more than he bargained for when he finally succeeds in doing so.
Zombies also feature in the title piece, an ambitious novella-length account of an S&M bible depicting acts “so extreme that it would take a madman to perform those outlined in the first chapter alone.” Wrath loses control of his narrative somewhat (a flaw that was rectified with a vengeance in SUCCULENT PREY), but it’s a memorable piece nonetheless, written by one of the few living authors capable of convincingly rendering such an extreme book’s contents.
Obviously those looking for state-of-the-art grotesquerie with a thoughtful, and thought-provoking, edge should pick this collection up. Be forewarned, though: that edge is a mighty sharp one.