The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth (Kyle Murchison Booth) Paperback | Pages: 253 pages

Present Epithetical Books The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth (Kyle Murchison Booth)

Title	:	The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth (Kyle Murchison Booth)
Author	:	Sarah Monette
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 253 pages
Published	:	October 23rd 2007 by Wildside Press (first published June 1st 2007)
Categories	:	Horror. Fantasy. Short Stories. Fiction. Mystery. Paranormal. LGBT

Chronicle During Books The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth (Kyle Murchison Booth)

Admirers of M.R. James will discover much to dote on in this collection of linked short stories revolving around a museum archivist specializing in rare manuscripts, who has the unenviable misfortune of routinely confronting the bizarre and the not-so-natural. Sarah Monette has crafted and polished 10 pieces of gothic horror that harken back to the classic "bump in the night" tales of the 19th Century.

Eschewing gore in favor of atmosphere, Monette creates visions of intelligent, nuanced dread. She won't make you scream aloud from sudden moments of in-your-face terror, but she will conjure icy fingers to squeeze your lungs and steal your breath away. 

Despite getting her inspiration from masters like Lovecraft and James, Monette recognized the shortcomings of such writers when it came to character development...not to mention casual racism, smack-bottom gender inequality, and homophobia. Therefore, in her intro to the collection, Monette states that her intent was to distill the above masters' prodigious ability to manufacture fear, and channel it into stories unstained by distasteful "isms" and  peopled with characters worth caring about. 

She succeeded, and the result is our protagonist, Kyle Munchinson Booth.

Over the course of these stories, we come to know Mr. Booth as a highly intelligent, well educated person who suffers from almost debilitating shyness and a pathological need to solve mysteries. He is tall, lanky, socially awkward, and insecure, despite being extremely capable at his work. He lost his parents at a young age, grew up with the nastiest of guardians, and is gay, an orientation that adds to his isolation given the time in which he lives (i.e., early 20th century).

Booth is a good man and it's hard not to like him. The relationship that develops between him and the reader during the course of the stories adds considerably to their effectiveness. 

THE STORIES:

The first three stories, "Bringing Helena Back," "The Venebretti Necklace," and "The Bone Key," left me very underwhelmed. They were well-written and easy to read, but the ghost element was pedestrian and lacked the oomph to move the needle on the fear meter. From these stories, however, we do learn about the museum where Booth works, about his unrequited love for his best friend, and that he lives under a family curse, which is explored in the title story.

A major upgrade occurs with story #4, "Wait for Me." In this one, Monette finally got my creep organ tingling, and left me experiencing heebies and jeebies for days afterwards whenever I passed a mirror.  Following that gem is "Drowning Palmer," a solid effort that finds Booth revisiting his boarding school days in a story themed around bullying, the wolf pack mentality and the stain of abuse that lingers on those that perpetrate it. 

The next two stories are my favorites in the collection and show what Monette can do when she's firing on all cylinders. First up, "The Inheritance of Barnabas Wilcox," which reads like a perfect M.R. James pastiche. In it, Booth finds himself coming the aide of one of his boarding school tormentors in a plot revolving around a dark quest for immortality. The end is absolutely flawless. 

Second in the "best of collection" double header is "Elegy for a Demon Lover," during which we finally see Booth address/confront/embrace his sexuality in a story that is both gorgeously written and achingly powerful. Full of love, loneliness, passion, and gut-wrenching despair, the end will leave all but the heartless moved. When I think of the character of Booth, this is the story that springs to mind. 

Next up is the longest story in the collection. "The Wall of Clouds" finds Booth seriously ill and on the verge of death following the events of the previous story (Note: the cause of Booth's illness is never explained, but Monette makes it clear in the afterward, and I think knowing this adds something to this story). Booth is sent to one of those convalescent hotels that are not-quite-a-hospital to rest and recover. Well, it turns out that an abnormally  high number of people staying at the hotel have a nasty habit of contracting a terminal case of the deads, and Booth finds himself X-filing the situation. 

The penultimate story,"The Green Glass Paperweight," is another terrific piece that sheds light on our hero. It explores the history and nature of the tumultuous relationship between Booth and his cold, abusive stepparents, and the destructive power of hate. 

The last story, "Listening to Bone," is very forgettable...so let's go ahead and forget it. 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This is a quality collection. If it wasn't for my lack of enthusiam for the first 3 stories and the last one, the rest of the tales would have earned a solid 4 stars, with a couple of five star ribbons for my two favorites. However, judging all of the stories en masse, I will have to settle for a strong "I like it." 

Thus, 3.0 to 3.5 stars. Recommended. 

Be Specific About Books In Pursuance Of The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth (Kyle Murchison Booth)

Original Title:	The Bone Key
ISBN:	0809557770 (ISBN13: 9780809557776)
Edition Language:	English
Series:	Kyle Murchison Booth
Characters:	Kyle Murchison Booth
Literary Awards:	Shirley Jackson Award Nominee for Single-Author Collection (Finalist) (2007)

Rating Epithetical Books The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth (Kyle Murchison Booth)

Ratings: 4.1 From 1189 Users | 181 Reviews

Criticism Epithetical Books The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth (Kyle Murchison Booth)

A sweetly prim museum archivist navigates a series of regretfully supernatural events.I really liked this series of interconnected short stories with a classic horror bent (as in, 19th- and early 20th-century-style tales). Think Arthur Dent meets Edward Gorey and you won't be too far off.Recommended for lovers of classic horror.

Ten stories about Kyle Murchison Booth, a museum archivist with an unlucky talent for encountering the strange and supernatural. The atmosphere is phenomenal, a historical horror vibe which is more cozy that particularly scary. The short fiction format is immensely readable; Booth's eccentricities and precise diction make for a charming, sympathetic narrative. It isn't as directly confrontational re: bigotry as the Lovecraft retellings we've seen in the last few years, but quietly and

This is a collection of creepy, melancholy short stories; a suitable read for the Halloween season. The stories all feature Kyle Murchison Booth, a sad, painfully awkward museum archivist who is beset by ghosts and other monstrous things. The setting is left deliberately vague; I got the impression of a city in New England, perhaps sometime in the 1950s.I like Monettes writing. The overall tone here is subdued, and the first few stories are rather slight. I might have found them unsatisfying on

I heavily recommend this scrumptious book to all fans of horror, especially those who prefer their fare erudite, cultured, or occult I have nothing but the highest praise for the author. While her slightly mannered prose hearkens to those piquant horror classics of yore, it is far from being overwrought. Indeed it is quite accessible, and I'm very much impressed by how Ms. Monette managed to marry a charming old world sensibility with a limpid, modern style that makes her stories compulsively

While Im as thoroughly enamoured with the writings of M.R. James as one can be, I have had this feeling of incompleteness for quite some time now that the scholarly protagonists featured in his stories are not real, because they are simply too devoid of earthly passions, except fear. On the other hand, his antagonists (including the spectral ones) appear to be more real, since they are full of hatred, avarice, anger, and all other emotions that are on display everywhere in real life. One

"The Bone Key" is a deliciously creepy and well written set of short stories in the vein of M. R. James and H. P. Lovecraft. Told from the point of view of painfully shy and fussily overly educated Kyle Murchison Booth, we the reader are privy to the secret dark world that lies just beneath the thin veil of normalcy that most people see. Booth is privy to that dark world as well, to his regret.

I liked this collection of short stories a lot - it's creepy and gothic and a little bit gay (in short, it's just about everything I love).I happened to start reading this book not too long after finishing another collection of short horror stories, Thomas Ligotti's Tales of a Dead Dreamer & Grimscribe, so it's inevitable that my mind jumps to compare the two, and Monette overall ranks more favorably than Ligotti in my estimation. The two are clearly influenced by H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar