Release Party Report, "The Mesmerizer" by David J. LeMaster

Well, the release party for Able to... has come and gone and I feel like I'm still recovering 3 days later. We had a good turnout, good readings, really good feelings of well-wishes and congratulations from everyone. The Square Moon Gallery turned out to be a very fine site for the party--just the right size and with so many beautiful things around us that those in attendance had plenty to talk about in the event they ran out of things to say about the publication of the book.

If you were there, thanks for coming by. If you missed it, well, sorry you did because it was a good time, but watch the neonuma.com website (which now needs updating--this week!) for other signings and events. There's more to come and I imagine they'll also be good times.

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So I didn't get through the entire book's contents before the release party. Such is life, I guess. But I still have four more stories to discuss and I won't short-change anyone. So without any further ado . . .

"The Mesmerizer" was the first thing I read by David LeMaster after we made contact. He pointed it out on the Spoiled Ink website, where it was previously published. It was a bit of a departure from the other stories in the book for a couple of reasons, but still fit in the overall theme.

First of all, the supposed "power" of the title character is a sham. He's a stage hypnotist who counts on the power of suggestion and cooperation from his audience participants to make his act work. He performs a lot at college campuses and he finds that there is a certain sort of young woman who will swoon at anyone on a stage and so he takes advantage of these young women for his own pleasure. In other words, he gets laid a lot.

Nevermind that he has a wife at home who never really got over the death of their infant son.

So this is where this story departs from other stories in the collection. This one is pretty much a horror story. Very dark, very disturbing. The infant son starts appearing to the Mesmerizer, during his stage act, during his post-performance trysts, always accusing the father of complicity in his death, always threatening to carry the father down to hell with him.

Does it get darker than deadly dead babies?

Anyway, I knew I risked this story sticking out a bit because the subject matter was so dark and because it uses a lot of what my mother would have called "rough language," but it also added a darker hue to the overall package of the anthology.

And David plays so well with the notion of the guilty conscience. There is a sense in which the only one the Mesmerizer mesmerizes is himself. That's fun, but it is also a result of, I believe, a guilty conscience--but not due to the thing the character is actually guilty of. If I read it right at all, he's having these horrific visions due to guilt over something he didn't really have any part in.

It's not so simple as all that. And I may have said too much already. I don't want to spoil any stories for those who haven't already read them. But if the subject matter doesn't put you off (I've already told one friend she might want to skip this story!), I hope you'll respond here or to me personally and tell me what you think. You might not think it has anything to do with a guilty conscience at all . . .