FOUR LEGS IN THE MORNING Norman Prentiss

FEATURED CREATURE: Mysterious Dr. Sibley


Norman Prentiss is both a high school English teacher and a Bram Stoker award winner, and in FOUR LEGS IN THE MORNING, it shows. Number Nine in Cemetery Dance's acclaimed Signature Series (home to such fantastic reads as Simon Clark's "Butterfly" and Brian Keene's "Scratch"), Prentiss shows here that he truly deserves the "Signature" in Signature Series. Blending constant literature-related influences and themes (the classic Greek play Oedipus Rex is constantly referenced, reading or knowing about the play before makes for a much more satisfying reading experience) with a taste for quiet horror a 'la the late Charles Grant, Prentiss then drenches his stories in heavy mood and atmosphere, creating shorts that hit hard, yet go down like a fine wine. Every one is to be savored, and none are to be quickly forgotten upon conclusion.

FOUR LEGS IN THE MORNING consists of three short stories; all can be read as stand-alone shorts, but all work together to combine into something greater. To accurately describe would be a feat in itself, but all the reader needs to know it that it works beautifully. Each story is attached to one man: the insidious Dr. Bennet Sibley. He could be related to several people suddenly leaving their jobs, he could be invading his student's dreams with old magic and storytelling-wizardry, he could have sent you to a cabin alone in the woods to be hunted by creatures only an ancient riddle could understand. In every story the main character finds himself suddenly under attack by Sibley...but in a sly, undermining way that is only revealed at the end of each story. These characters never directly provoke Sibley, but anything that goes against Sibley's classical mode of teaching and philosophy is immediately taken as a threat that needs to be removed. Sibley's motives are picked apart by each of the three story's main characters, but he is never fully understood; even the reader is left with many questions regarding him.

Prentiss almost never goes out and tells the reader; as an author he's like a real-life Sibley, deconstructing ideas, spreading them out amongst the story, and leaving the reader to pick them up and put them back together again. If Sibley is Humpty-Dumpty, then we the readers are the horsemen desperately trying to make the story whole again. The reader may read the first story (title story "Four Legs in the Morning") and find him/herself a bit confused, then read the next two and suddenly the first seems whole again. Or you may read the second story ("Flannel Board"), and find prefaces to it in the first; allusions to it in the third. The final story ("The Mask of Tragedies") is emotionally the strongest; whereas the first two tales are great, everything comes full-circle here to provide the best story overall for the reader. In it, Prentiss finds ways to make Sibley more menacing than he looks...or is it the other way around?

FOUR LEGS IN THE MORNING keeps that question hanging over every story, just like every story is literally packed with art galore. I've yet to see a Sig Series book filled with such a variety of artwork; art takes up full pages, art takes up half pages, art sits in the middle of the page, heck, art is even used to separate scenes. Though I read an ARC, I can tell this is one book will not disappoint production wise. The Signature Series is known for its art-orientated, production-heavy books, and the three stories, each illustrated by Steven Gilberts, (who also did artwork on Clark's "Butterfly") deserve nothing less then the elegant treatment they get here.

Come December 2011, you will not want to miss this book!


GRADE: A


NOTE #1: This being a Signature Series Book, it's practically guaranteed this will sell-out pre-publication, which is why we are reviewing it so early! Cemetery Dance will be publishing it at the end of the year, but they will be announcing it soon! With their tiny print runs (550 S/L/#), this one is gonna go fast!

NOTE #2: As mentioned above, you can read the first story in the book for free. It's available on the Cemetery Dance website! If you're on the edge about paying 35$ for such a slim book...you won't be after you read "FOUR LEGS IN THE MORNING".