Steve Nallon’s Ghost Stories by Steve Nallon (book review).

I have been a fan of ghost stories for many years. Something else that I was a fan of in my youth was the satirical UK TV puppet show ‘Spitting Image’ which, between 1984 and 1996, took the mickey out of the rich and famous and, most importantly, politicians. The author of this collection, Steven Nallon, was a founding member of the ‘Spitting Image’ cast, so when I heard that he had published a book of ghost stories, I jumped at the chance to review it.

Before talking about the stories, I should first mention that the book itself is a work of art. It has a wonderfully effective painting on the front cover, while inside it includes sixteen full-colour illustrations by Scott Brooker, another ‘Spitting Image’ luminary. There is a digital painting to illustrate each of the twelve stories, plus a few extra on top. Each picture is beautifully rendered, and they provide a wonderful counterpoint to the text of each story.

I’ve not got room to talk about every piece in the collection below, so instead, I’ve highlighted a cross-section of them.

The collection starts with ‘The Oath Of Aesculapius.’ This is a morality tale, told as a story within a story. The story introduces us to a group of middle-aged men who met each other at Oxford University. Since graduating, they have held three reunions a year, at which they eat expensive food, drink fine wines, congratulate themselves on their worldly success, and then share a ghost story. On this occasion, the narrator’s ghostly tale turns out to be a fitting precursor to the dramatic events that bring their evening to an abrupt close. I thought this was an excellent start to the collection and particularly enjoyed the several ways in which the ghost story at its heart was tied into a satisfying conclusion to the main narrative.

‘The Portrait Of A Looking-Glass’ pays homage to Montague Rhodes (MR) James, a master of the British ghost story genre. With elements that reference several of James’ own stories, the narrator of this story tells us about an academic called Rhodes, who visits the Suffolk coast in late October 1894 to do some research into local Anglo-Saxon history. He stays at a slightly dilapidated inn, where his room features a striking mirror, whose frame displays the phases of the Moon, and an equally striking oil painting of a local dandy, who appears to be standing next to the self-same mirror! He is told that these items, along with a mezzotint engraving hung in the corridor outside his bedroom, are the only items to have survived a fire that destroyed the Great House nearby some 19 years earlier, on All Hallows Eve. When Rhodes decides to walk to the ruins of this building later that evening, his troubles are only just beginning. This is a wonderful homage to the works of MR James. If you’ve read his ghost stories, you can have fun finding all the Jamesian references here. If you haven’t, I hope this story will encourage you to seek out the tales that inspired this excellent piece.

‘Visiting Hattie’ is a loving tribute to that staple of British seaside postcard humour, the ‘Carry On’ film franchise. Narrated by the ghost of Kenneth Williams, the story tells what happens when newlyweds Adam and Calvin, both superfans of the aforementioned films, are given a spookily lifelike pastel drawing of the ‘Carry On’ stalwart Hattie Jacques as a wedding present. Readers under thirty might question the significance of this story, but for me, it evoked nostalgic memories of spending Saturday afternoons in front of the TV during the 1970s and 1980s.

‘The Strange Case Of The Unaccountable Shadow’ is a short but highly effective psychological horror piece told through a series of diary entries. Thirteen-year-old Nathan is studying Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, at school. Not liking books herself but wanting her son to do well, Nathan’s mother decides to employ a private tutor to help him understand the book. While the tutoring goes well, Nathan’s mother becomes increasingly fixated on knowing exactly what Mrs. Higgins, the tutor, is teaching her son, with ultimately tragic results. The epistolary nature of this story works very well, ramping the tension up continuously from the first page to the last.

‘Who Fed The Cat?’, the penultimate story in the collection, is also the shortest. It’s a noir story set in Los Angeles in 1946 at the funeral of a beautiful young woman. Despite being shot dead, she refuses to pass away without revealing her killer to everyone. Nallon has chosen to write this piece from the second person (‘you’) point of view, which I often find challenging to read. That’s the case here. I very much enjoyed the scene setting and the reveal of the murderer but must admit that I found the chosen point of view a little distracting.

While most of the pieces in this collection are short stories, the longest item in the book is a screenplay. The screenplay is also a successful one, having garnered several awards from various film festivals. ‘For The Hell Of It’ opens on a beach somewhere in the UK, at dawn on the Summer Solstice. A party of four men and three women, all in their early thirties, wakes up from what looks like a boozy all-night beach party. They are clearly old friends who know each other well. Almost immediately, tensions arise, but they quickly diffuse when they discover a severed head washed up by the tide! Their grisly find doesn’t bother them, so they wrap the head in a blanket and take it to the local police station. However, as soon as they leave the beach, odd things start to happen to them one by one. This is a surreal but fascinating story. I must admit that I found the pace of the first half pretty slow. However, the second half amply compensates for this, culminating in a deeply satisfying, albeit somewhat tragic, conclusion. Nallon uses the screenplay format to excellent effect here, and it would be wonderful to see this piece turned into a film or, failing that, a graphic novel.

The other six stories are just as varied and enjoyable as the ones I’ve highlighted above.

In addition to the twelve pieces of fiction, the book also includes three appendices. While two of these are short, expanding on specific issues raised in a couple of the stories, the first appendix is both long and extremely interesting. It contains a substantial essay outlining Nallon’s thoughts on ghost stories as a genre of fiction. I found this a fascinating and insightful read and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the genre.

‘Steve Nallon’s Ghost Stories’ is a highly enjoyable collection of tales, spanning many different approaches to the concept of the ghost story. Some are horrific, others humorous, while pathos can often be found just below the surface. Nallon is a multifaceted writer with great powers of invention and almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of his favourite genre. I loved reading this book. If you enjoy curling up in front of the fire in the evening with a book of ghostly tales, I’d strongly encourage you to track this collection down.

Patrick Mahon

March 2025

(pub: Scratching Shed Publishing, 2024, 432 page paperback. Price: £15.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1- 06861-896-3)

check out websites: www.scratchingshedpublishing.co.uk and www.nallon.com