Halloween 2017

The uncanny is alive on the South Shore

Posted

In Daniel Braum’s short story “A Girl’s Guide to Applying Superior Makeup and Dispelling Commonly Found Suburban Demons,” a South Shore teenager discovers a dark power within herself when she rescues an older girl from a sexual assault while waiting in line for Billy Joel tickets at the Nassau Coliseum in 1985.

Other stories by the author, of Merrick and Bellmore, take his characters to South America, a desert in an unspecified location, and back to New York, where a giant sphinx lumbers across the Belt Parkway.

Braum’s stories all, however, involve the collision of the odd and the mundane, and an element of what he calls “the natural uncanny” that can be found anywhere — even in the South Shore suburbs where he grew up.

“The supernatural angle to the stories, while present, is never fully explained,” Braum said last week. “It’s clear that there’s something scary or unnatural going on, but the focus is on the characters and their reactions.”

Braum, a graduate of Calhoun High School, has written two collections of short fiction, called “The Night Marchers” and “The Wish Mechanics,” as well as several novels, which will be published soon, but he is currently forbidden from speaking about.

With his work published by the company Cemetery Dance, which made its name by publishing some of the world’s best-known horror authors early in their careers, including Stephen King and Robert McCammon, Braum has found himself in good company.

As his profile in the genre has risen, he has had the chance to meet some of his idols, including author Peter Straub, whom he hosted at a Night Time Logic reading event, which takes place twice a year in different New York City locations and aims to highlight genre fiction for those who might not otherwise give it a shot.

Braum said last week that he hasn’t had any “uncanny” experiences himself in the suburbs of the South Shore — at least none that he wanted to share. However, he said that some of his upcoming work is inspired by phenomena he has begun to notice in Bellmore and Merrick.

Braum said he has been struck by some visible — and surreal — signs of the opioid epidemic in his community. “I’ll be walking my dog down the street and actually see a heroin needle on the street sometimes, unfortunately,” he said. This sobering reality is coloring some of his pending work.

On the lighter side, Braum only recently became aware of the significant number of non-native green monk parakeets that makes their home on the South Shore, as well as in Queens and Brooklyn. In fact, there’s a small colony of the uncanny birds in his backyard.

“They’ll probably make their way into one of my stories at some point,” he said.

With Halloween nearing, Braum offered a few choice recommendations last week for anyone looking for a substantive scare, including director David Robert Mitchell’s 2015 coming-of-age horror film “It Follows” — which, he said, is the film that most closely resembles what he goes for in his own fiction.

Also, he said, his recent dive into the lurid, primary-colored world of 1970s Italian horror films by the likes of Dario Argento has been rewarding, and horror fans “still can’t go wrong” with Stephen King’s early short fiction collections “Night Shift” and ‘Skeleton Crew.”

However, according to Braum, anyone seeking out a good horror novel would be best off going to the Bellmore Library and asking for a recommendation from longtime librarian Martha DiVittorio. She can help “horror buffs looking to dive deeper,” Braum said, “and she can also share her wide knowledge and experience with the pop-culture side and overlap of the genre for those looking to try it.”

Selections of Braum’s fiction, as well as information on events he participates in, and links to purchase his books, can be found at his website, bloodandstardust.wordpress.com. His books are available on Amazon, at BN.com, and can be ordered in print by any bookstore.