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I have known Tim Lebbon for over twenty years now. That’s a mind-blowing amount of time and yet it has passed in the blink of an eye. One minute you’re the young guns of the genre and the next you’re the old guard and wondering what the hell TikTok is and how are people using it to sell books.
Tim and I started out together really, he was a couple of years ahead in publishing terms, and I still call him Bruv because he was like a big brother to me back around 2003/4 when I was starting out. He told me which cons to go to, he introduced me to people, we drank and smoked (he didn’t do triathlons then—as an aside, reader, I had to look up how to spell that word!) and talked about conquering the world and creeping people out with our stories.
Twenty something years on, we still have those conversations. Tim is still as ambitious and fired up as he was when I first met him in person, in a pub in Wales, at his launch for The Nature of Balance. He’s still as excited about work, as driven, as relentless as he was then. But has he changed? Sure. Everyone does. We get older. More knots in the wood. Time has more meaning now. We’ve seen more changes in the world, the people around us, the lives we live.
Tim’s writing has changed too. I was a fan of his early work and I’m still a fan now, especially of his short form writing. Tim has a real knack with novellas and short stories that I’m quite envious of, and he clearly loves writing them.
How can I describe this collection? I guess, grown up, springs to mind. I remember reading Stephen King’s Hearts in Atlantis when it came out and loving it but thinking, this is grown up Stephen King, and I had the same feeling reading the stories in this collection. Tim’s grown up.
Are the stories still creepy? Oh yes, of course. Clown’s Kiss in particular absolutely terrified me with its quietly building dread. Tim Lebbon can do creepy all day—or night—long. But now his tales are not about the jump scares or potential boogeymen under the bed. These are stories that chill, I feel. Like reading an M.R James short story before bed and thinking, that wasn’t too bad, and then staring at the ceiling in the dark as your skin prickles with the aftereffects. That’s how I felt reading these. And so of course I read them before bed and let my skin prickle.
But I found that the after-effects weren’t just the prickling of my skin. They’re rich these stories, thick with things learned through the passing of time. The ache of loss. The pain of mourning—mourning of a person, a place, a time gone by, a person we once were. The ghosts that walk with the living who grow closer as we age. The loss of things we realise we may never have, that in the flush of youth seemed so close within grasp. This is a grown-up collection and it deals with grown up themes. These stories have been written by a man in the decade between his forties and fifties—the move from young to middle-aged—and Tim has clearly mined the seam of emotions that comes in that decade when curating this collection.
The titles of the stories he’s chosen reflect these themes too—Relics, Skin & Bone, In the Dust, May the end be Good—the phrases ache with a sense of the inevitable march of time and how we change with its heavy footsteps.
There is nothing complacent and middle-aged here. Thoughtful, skilled and crafted, yes. I would even say elevated. All that drive and energy that Tim had when I first met him is still there in these stories, but now they’re written with a defter hand. With more experience behind them. With more life and loss bound into the words.
Yes, we’re older. Yes, we’re more weighed down with the problems of life and the ticking of the clock than we were when we first met all those years ago. But for Tim at least, nothing in his storytelling has slowed. He’s maturing like a fine wine. His tales are richer and deeper and more full-bodied. So, pour yourself a glass and take a seat. Sip this book or down it in one, whichever way is your preference, you’re in for a heady experience.
And it will last All Nightmare Long.
Sarah Pinborough