`The Grave` by P.D. Cacek

p The Grave ' is the first fiction I 've read by

.D .Cacek , despite her being a Bram Stoker Award winner . Her style can only be described as contemporary dark fantasy , with a touch of horror . Cacek has a superbly twisted imagination . There are many excellent ideas here . Nothing too outlandish , nothing gory or too explicit , not too many explanations The Grave ' centers around a mother daughter relationship . A school librarian with a domineering mother discovers her maternal side when she unearths the decayed body of a newborn in a ravine . And

now an already strained household relationship will become even worse . An effective and enjoyable story of repression and madness if ever I saw one . Cacek doesn 't waste time trying to justify the strangeness of her worlds rather she concentrates on the way the characters act in them . There are some very real people in here

As the story begins , immediately , the audience knows that something is not right . Gone are the undertones of normalcy usually present in a of a person 's home , and in their place are discordant images of a disturbing tension between mother and daughter . These undertones remain throughout the story , and provide a nagging sense of expectation tinged with fear

Cacek 's use of details and her skillful application of a first person viewpoint certainly contribute to "The Grave " However , it is the author 's use of fear that drives the story . She could have chosen among a great many feelings , but terror , being among the most extreme of the identified emotions , is a powerful force , giving Cacek the opportunity to manipulate what we think and feel . Cacek wants her reader to question what would drive a woman to bring home a decayed dead baby . The answer is clear , the abuse suffered at the hands of her mother . While this abuse may not be physical it is certainly present

However , what makes this story extreme is the coupling of terror with maternal domination . Most readers have experienced being controlled by one or more of their parents . As a child 's age increases the worse the the guilt and control can be . This in and of itself is terrifying and real to many readers . Cacek use of mundance family strife is excellent of using what most people experience and are familiar with to connect to her audience . In using this family tension she is essentially telling her readers , this could happen to you

Cacek draws on another human emotion , loneliness . The woman in this story , the meek librarian , was lonely . This isolation can , obviously warp a woman 's mind and what she deems normal . The audience can not see her as a bad person , but one that has had a mental break from reality The horrors of poverty and loneliness are ideal settings for serious horror fiction , so don 't neglect them . This is one of the areas where horror writing mingles with mainstream

Location is a vital aspect of horror writing , and...