Horror Book Review: Midnight Mattress (Austin Mooney)

Midnight Mattress is the debut short story collection of author Austin Mooney. It features 25 tales of horror, laced with comedy, and taking influence from a wide array of sources that include Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Junji Ito, H.P. Lovecraft, and 80s horror movies.

Filled with imagination and a talent for writing surreal stories, Austin Mooney’s short story collection is a substantial read that creates a myriad of feelings inside the reader. You’ll feel fearful, uncomfortable, sickened, amused, entertained, disturbed, and so much more, by what is experienced here.

Chances are, like most anthologies, if one story hasn’t had an effect on you, the next will, and like most anthologies, there are hits and misses. Happily, those misses are few and far between and the majority of the collection leaves some kind of impression.

First up, it’s Moss and immediately Mooney sets the bar high for surrealism that borders on madness with a tale about Icelandic screaming moss. It’s weird, but it is compelling. Whereas Fried Tarantulas is just horrible, even if you’re a fan of the creepy-crawly. Here, Mooney’s ability to be garishly descriptive is on show and it’s gleefully revolting.

Then, it’s time for something quite horrifying as One Night at Connor Inn sends a chill down the spine. One of the stories that is the easiest to visualise as Mooney creates swirling atmosphere. This is one of the book’s best. Whereas neither Washing Machine or Papermaker have a memorable hook, both being some of the book’s shortest stories and leaving little impression.

Thankfully, The Folding Man brings back the quality with a story that is exceptionally imaginative and extremely upsetting. What would you do if you couldn’t stop yourself from literally folding up? It really is as absurd as it sounds, and it’s great. As is Wax, playing up to some legitimate real-life fears in gross fashion, and Aunt Meredith, where Mooney showcases his effortless ability to transform nonsense into something terrifying and gripping, again.

Jackalope is a miss, being fairly mundane and short, before a second cat-related story (the other being Aunt Meredith) arrives with Fuzz. This is one to scare the cat owners out there, after all, the furry buggers shed all the time. Mooney just so happens to take this and turn it into something weird, again.

Some of his better writing comes when he likes to get a bit gross, often going into intricate detail around a particular thing or event and how it can feel so invasive. Slug House is a great example of this. Alongside that though, when Mooney writes from a more ‘fun’ aspect, a story like Midnight Mattress comes along. Silly and extremely entertaining, it will make you look twice at your mattress!

Whacking Willy is a creepy one, Toothpicks is an uncomfortable read (that is a little dragged out), The Tree Keeper shocks with its violent outburst, before along comes The Yellow Screen to get everyone reading feeling quite ill. How a story about what happens when your phone battery dies turns into this monstrosity is staggering and it’s one of the moments where you want to ask Austin Mooney directly, – what the hell is wrong with you!?

Impression well and truly left, that’s for sure and the body horror continues with Wart Forest, another read that churns the stomach significantly.

The hits keep on coming too as Red Swallow and The Laughing Box prove to be clever reads. Both are bright showcases of Mooney’s ability to keep the reader engaged over just a handful of pages but from different creative areas and with different types of entertainment value.

Which isn’t quite the case with A Dead Entryway. While it does create some cool imagery, it’s not particularly memorable. Unfortunately, alongside this, the less said about The Vanishing Gong, the better, and the book goes a bit downhill for a longer period here. Sugar is a whole lot of nothing, Williwaw Cockalorum is over before it really gets going and Walking on Water doesn’t quite live up to the promise the early pages make.

It’s disappointing to hit this point, especially with end in sight, but happily Mooney pulls it back around with the final story, Stargazing. His epic, not just in length but in scope, and it’s a great showcase of how exciting and interesting his storytelling can be when given a lot of time to breathe.

It, like so many stories in this collection, stay with you long afterwards and create a sense of excitement for what might come next from the talented author. To have so many hit stories in such a huge debut collection is impressive and there’s no doubt that he has a bright future within the horror literary world.

Links

Website | Amazon