Not quite bad to the bone

Anton Grasso's name has, over the years, become synonymous with horror fiction, the paranormal and the macabre. Faithful readers have gone as far as to describe him as our very own Stephen King, which might not be too much of a compliment anyway.

Throughout the years, Mr Grasso's dedication and contribution to the genre have earned him a consistent and dedicated cult following. Mr Grasso published his first book Iljieli Bla Qamar in 1974, probably marking the first modern collection of horror stories in Maltese. Throughout his writing career, prolific Mr Grasso has regaled us with books as if doomsday is forthcoming, including novels, translations, short stories, a volume of essays, poetry, an autobiography and two studies of the paranormal. One of these studies, Enigma, was adapted as a successful television series, going as far as to win the 1995 Broadcasting Authority Award as Best Documentary. This surely helped cement Mr Grasso's reputation further, while granting him a wider exposure, particularly with the younger audiences.

Mr Grasso's relationship with the transmitted media was not only limited to television. Most would recall his radio programme Stejjer tal-Waħx on Radju Malta a few decades back, during which the author himself would read a few selected horror stories from his repertoire: these 30-minute readings remained popular for over 20 years. All these achievements, coupled with his genuine interest in the subject, have rightly earned Mr Grasso the title of one of the most prolific Maltese writers ever, as well as the foremost exponent of this genre of writing in the Maltese language.

A while back, Outlook Coop decided to publish the author's best short stories in six volumes, with Mr Grasso himself selecting and revising the stories. Inċens (2000) was the first volume published, and this was soon followed by Limbu (2001), Infern (2003) and Ħurrieq (2005).

Għadam, the author's fifth volume of best stories, and his 48th publication overall, is a collection of stories that previously appeared in Stejjer Imsaħħra (1996), Xtrajt l-Infern (1997) and Griżma ta' l-Isqof (1997). The stories in this collection revolve around characters who are unsuccessfully coping with the tragedies of both life and love; characters who, to use the author's own words, are "alive but not living".

Despite the book being interspersed with a few good moments, not every tale manages to pull its weight. The ones that come close are those that match up with psychological truths, and understandably so. For instance, Hansel and Gretel remains an unforgettable story because it fleshes out our childhood fears of neglect and rejection, and our suspicions of what awaits us in the wider world.

That is why we never think twice about believing the tale's grim unreality, the cannibal witch and her deathly-sweet cottage.

However, once these psychological truths are put aside, the stories start losing focus and the characters die a premature death without haunting us in the way the author would wish them to. It is far from being correct to believe that peppering the dialogue with social commentaries adds to the narrative. On the contrary, facile commentaries provide next to no punch to the storyline, which in most cases, already suffers from predictable plots and twists.

Quite as ineffective is the quasi-pedantic dialogue, which is at times inconsistent and thus undermines any attempt at forging credible characters. While being written in good Maltese, the dialogue could definitely borrow more from the day-to-day language in order to mould believable characters and give a more flowing quality to the narrative.

The frequency with which these blemishes appear is often so high as to make such infelicities inevitably stand out. Nevertheless, despite these shortcomings, fans of the genre will probably enjoy Għadam. Just as probable is the fact that Mr Grasso will be back with yet another book.

• Mr Mallia is a science graduate currently reading for Doctor of Medicine & Surgery at the University of Malta. Although he has been taught that laughter is the best medicine, he still thinks that a good book is a much better drug.

• A review copy of this title was supplied by Outlook Coop, Malta.