The White Hands
Mark Samuels, "The White Hands" from The White Hands and Other Weird Tales (Tartarus Press: 2003). The work of Mark Samuels is compelling. Like other writers with a strong voice, all of his short stories feel connected, each thematically supporting the others. Samuels often riffs on provocative themes and ideas about weird horror fiction itself, and it is to those ideas that I briefly turn, with a focus on “The White Hands,” all the while recognizing that other stories by Samuels support his ideas. Two principles emerge (these are often put in the mouth of Alfred Muswell or other disciples of Lilith Blake, all fictional characters in Samuels’ stories): 1. The Isolation Principle: Isolation, particularly in the face of death, disease, or madness, is the essence of weird horror fiction. As Muswell tells John Harrington, “Mental isolation is the essence of weird fiction. Isolation when confronted with disease, with madness, with horror and with death. These are the re...