Today, the New York Times published a review of Clay McLeod Chapman‘s Stay on the Line.
Read the full review here or below:
Clay McLeod Chapman is known for publishing excellent grief horror, and his new novelette, STAY ON THE LINE (Shortwave Publishing, 49 pp., paperback, $11.99), illustrated by Trevor Henderson, is no exception.
After a Category 3 hurricane devastates a small coastal town and kills many people, the community’s residents discover that they can use an old pay phone outside a local bar to communicate with the dead. Soon, there are long lines in the parking lot because everyone wants to talk to a lost loved one. Then people start disappearing. Some of them are later found dead.
For a woman who lost her partner, the father of her child, talking on the phone is a balm. But then things take a turn. The voice on the other end of the line is not the man she knew, and just like every other voice coming through the phone, it wants something.
“Stay on the Line” is a quick, unnerving and brutal story about how loss makes us desperate. Chapman is fantastic at pulling at the reader’s heartstrings while also delivering supernatural chaos, and Henderson’s artwork, always dark and gloomy, is the perfect accompaniment. This book is a literary punch to the heart.
Stay on the Line is a novelette, illustrated by Trevor Henderson, and will be available Tuesday, July 30th in paperback and eBook.
