Doug Bolden's Reviews > Element Of Doubt

One initial caveat out of the way: despite the subtitle on the cover, this is not really a book of ghost stories. There are ghost stories in it. Many of the stories do have some degree of supernatural elements or oddness. Essentially all have some sort of "haunting" though odds linger around 50/50 that the term is about grief and loss than anything spooky.

While I am not trying to lump A.L. Barker into some broad umbrella of Aickman-esque*, I think you could possibly best mentally frame what you are about to read by considering this collection in similar terms to how Robert Aickman framed his own stories: "strange". Barker is playing some fairly similar games as Aickman by using a wryly understated satirist's brush to make these vaguely dark comedic asides which are also poignant and sad. Ghosts and spooks occasionally intersect but in only a couple of cases are they (a) obvious or (b) central to the plot as a ghost/spook. Some are much more subtle or mostly something like a background element.

Barker (who would have been in her 70s when this was initial published) could be thought to be cataloging something of an end-of-life stack of observations. The just-in-time of "Just in Time," for instance — a story about being plagued by other people's opinions of your marriage and how they think it is perfect and incessantly tell you so while you know it is really falling apart — is about how a sudden death of a spouse might have saved the appearance and expectations of a marriage for everyone else. In real life, Barker left her marriage because she "couldn't be bothered". The longest story, and opener, "Romney," is about grief and how it completely overshadows everything else. While there is no deep conspiracy at the heart of the tale (spoilers, I guess), the fact that it posits itself into certain gothic and cozy mystery modes means you feel it might have something deeper inside than a family still unable to process their own emotional scars.

Or, in a more minor example, the final story, "I'll Never Know," is perhaps a take (or a jab) on the sort of ghost story that drives solutions through implications**, but the most haunting bit is when the POV character and a young girl/ghost is look at a carved panel. Initially the art is seen as exquisite and beautiful. As the young girl "puts her thumb upon it," it is described as explicit and tawdry and a "bacchanal of nymphs and satyrs". Later, as the girl is forgotten and gone, the piece again is beautiful and worth saving. While Barker could be talking about the value of art being caught up in the person experiencing it (and I think she is), it feels like another part of it is about how the people we know have an underneath we somewhat ignore in order to appreciate their beauty, especially in a long-enough life.

A similar game is played in "The Dress," where a dumpy little young woman becomes the object of desire for an older confirmed bachelor who judges her for wearing a particular dress that he feels does not suit her. Later, as he remarries, someone else wears the same dress (what counts as this story's haunting) only now he finds its beautiful and well suited.

Recommended. Outside of the opening story, most of the others are short and quick. A few have actual monsters of a sort. Many (even some with monsters) are more about the ruminating. It is the kind of collection I wish there was more of... but it was probably just the right amount in hindsight.

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* for one, she often gives you plenty of explanation.

** In this case, it is explicitly obvious what the twist is though some of the language pretends as thought it is not.