Waiting on Eli
(Or 5 Anthologies That Will Save Your Life)
By Michael Leonberger
Every time I finish writing a short story, I’m filled with this giddy, wonderful feeling, where the sun is brighter, the birds sing prettier music, and my bearded dragon has pooped recently (sidebar: my bearded dragon, Eli, normally and stubbornly refuses to poop, causing my household to constantly play a “will he, won’t he” game of whether or not he’ll defecate – normally, he won’t, but I digress).
The point is: this unique, pleasant feeling comes from the fact that I probably grew up reading collections of short stories more than reading actual novels. I inherited a love of short fiction from my father, who maintains writing a short story is the hardest thing of all to write. I’m not sure I agree with him – I partially think I love writing short fiction out of some deep-seated sense of laziness (why spin this into a novel when I could end it now?), but he believes a good short story is an exemplar of disciplined structure.
Who am I to argue with my own father?
I’ll do him one better: a good collection of short stories can help you live.
And because I want you to live a long time, stranger, I’m going to recommend to you five collections of short stories I fell in love with when I was young (and because I’m still alive right now, I’m going to assume their life-extending power really worked).
So here we go!
1) Tales from the Crypt Volume 1 by Eleanor Fremont (adapted from stories by William Gaines)
I’m going to cement my literary bona fides right here, right now, by recommending you a children’s book upfront. Only this book won’t just save your life – having read it will make you infinitely cooler (trust me – that, or it will make you deeply delusional). The point is this: I’m a huge fan of William Gaines, and I have been since I discovered this book at ten years old. I think his horror comic anthologies can basically be summarized as blissful bundles of dynamite, where each stick captures the brilliant, the sublime, and the perverse. True to dynamite’s purpose, each story explodes. This small adapted volume, that dispenses with most of the illustrations in favor of prose, is the first time I ever read anything based on his work — needless to say, this book blew my ten-year-old brain apart. Is it for children? Yes. Is it a quick, illustrated read? Sure. But is it vital, resonant, and absolutely chilling? You betcha.
2) Tennessee Williams: Collected Stories (Written by Tennessee Williams)
My favorite short story I’ve ever read is in this volume, The Field of Blue Children. I dedicated my first book, Halloween Sweets, to this story, and what I believe it represents. I’ve read it many times, and I cry each time I do. The prose is riveting – it’s as though a private and deeply personal part of my soul is being dragged out of my body with explosive, electric, crystal hooks. Ya know? It’s a good feeling, believe it or not. John Waters said it best when he wrote that, “Tennessee Williams saved my life,” and who can argue with the Pope of Trash? Essential reading.
3) Books of Blood 1-3 (Written by Clive Barker) (Yes, three books…I may be cheating)
Speaking of pulling things out of your body with hooks, let’s talk about Clive Barker! There were three volumes of this Barkley Books paperback published in America that I gobbled up as a young man (as well as three more parts published under different names that I wouldn’t get my hands on until later). I’ll never forget the covers of the first three volumes, looking like gonzo Halloween Masks, lit from within with melting Crayola lights, and not really betraying what lay inside — stories so spectacularly imagined and realized, so artfully intimate and grotesque, that they made me understand writing prose could be the equivalent of rock and roll. Give me the beat, boys, and damn my soul, because there’s nothing better than getting lost in Clive Barker’s rock ‘n roll.
4) A Good Man Is Hard To Find — Flannery O’Conner
Discovering this book of treasures was religious. There’s humor, there’s horror, there’s desperation, and there’s a sense of grace, itself a character that stalks each story — hard, wounding, pitiless, and redemptive. Before reading this, I intentionally wrapped my own stories in a house style of junk food cinema and cheap thrills but reading this was a powerful blast of nutritional goodness. It turns out, you need nutritional goodness to live.
5) Skeleton Crew — Stephen King
Trust me, reading this is good for you — at least as good for you as eating the Lady Fingers that the protagonists of King’s Survivor Type ingest. I’ll never forget when I first read this — sitting inside the auditorium of my middle school, flipping the pages with trembling fingers while I waited for a play to start that has subsequently slipped from my memory. Because I wasn’t really in that auditorium at all, or seeing a play — I was being held captive by this delightful madman, Stephen King, gratefully absorbing every horrible and delightful gift he had to share with me. This, probably, is the book that made me want to write — or maybe it was the other four? — and saved my life, all the same. Reading (and writing) can do that, you know — so get to it! Lost time is never found again, after all (and I can promise you that, as I continue to spend most of mine waiting on Eli to poop).
Title: Legendary (Triskaidekaphilia #1)
Authors: Laura Harvey, Sara Dobie Bauer, Wendy Sparrow, T.R. North, Aisling Phillips, Michael Leonberger
Blurb: Urban legends. We’ve all heard them, we’ve all told them. They fill the role that fairy tales once held—morality tales meant to frighten us into sticking with the herd, obeying society’s rules, and not taking any chances. In most urban legends, once someone transgresses, we know things won’t end well for them.
But what if the bright spark of romance also common to these stories refuses to be snuffed out? What if it bursts into a love that fights for its chance to burn? Can love triumph over evil? Forgive any trespass? Heal any wound?
Set off into a dark wood with a young love that won’t go quietly into the night. Bait a vengeful ghost to find family and love. Ride along with a hitchhiker who won’t vanish for long. Learn to love a touch that is not human. Find passion beneath the scars. Dive into five tales that speak to the heart of myth and find love that is nothing short of legend.
Featuring new stories by Sara Dobie Bauer, Wendy Sparrow, T. R. North, Aisling Phillips, and Michael Leonberger.
About the Author
Michael Leonberger is a writer and teacher from Virginia, where he currently lives with his girlfriend and their pet turtle.
He graduated from VCU with a degree in Cinema and has worked jobs as disparate as a horror make-up effects artist for Kings Dominion’s Halloween Haunt to being an extra in the Steven Spielberg film, Lincoln.
In 2014, his first feature film, Goodish, was an official selection in the VA Film Festival in Charlottesville, VA. That same year he published his first book, Halloween Sweets. He has since published several short stories.
He currently writes a monthly column for the online journal Digital America.
