THE JUNGLE a short story by Conrad Williams (2013)
Copy 157 of a signed limited edition of 200 copies
Purchased this week from NIGHTJAR PRESS
If I review this story, it will eventually be found in the thought stream below or by clicking on this post’s title above.
Crossing themes with the threatened or enhanced child from the involving-impasto effects of painting as locked in a previous Nightjar of various colours, this wonderful story is of an artist, naive like Henri Rousseau, who lives in the ‘homeskull’ of a one bedroom flat with working-at-home wife, and a toddler son Fred. This protagonist is, for me, physically paranoiac, if there is such an expression. Scared of his own shadow? Overly protective. The eventuality of a jungle adventure gymnasium to shelter from the rain with Fred, as crossed with a nightmare version of the first painting he had not been able to sign, makes a fitting climax to all seven reviews of Nightjars I have just conducted one by one in real-time.
I fondly remember sharing with this author the story contents list of a horror fanzine called ‘Dementia 13’ in the late 1980s.
Other Nightjars:
https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/tag/nightjar-press/