A Newly Arrived Triumph

ATTILA VERSE • The Black Maybe: Liminal Tales • Translated by Luca Karafiáth • Richmond, VA: Valancourt Books, 2022 • 310 pp • $29.99 HC • ISBN: 978–1–954321–69–4 • $17.99 TPB • ISBN: 978–1–954321–70–0.

By Géza A. G. Reilly

It is always a pleasure to find a new and exciting author, though in the case of Attila Veres, it would perhaps be better to say that he is newly arrived. Veres has been writing for several years in both Norway and his native Hungary, working in film and television along with publishing a successful novel and short story collection. The Black Maybe: Liminal Tales is Veres’ first collection to be printed in English. As his first English work (and only his second published collection), The Black Maybe is a resounding success for the young author. Though not every story is a total triumph, devotees of weird fiction would be well served by paying attention to Veres’ work.

The prose in The Black Maybe is crisp and precise throughout, never wasting words on overly verbose description and never skimping on the necessary moments of atmosphere and character that give horror fiction its power. Special mention must be made of Veres’ translator, Luca Karafiáth. Hungarian and English are vastly different languages, and it is often difficult to translate from one to the other without losing the text’s thrust and power. Yet, nowhere in The Black Maybe is there any sense that the text was not composed by a native speaker of English. Throughout, Veres’ writing carries with it a deep sense of dreadful anticipation, occasional humor, and realistic dialogue.

At their best, Veres’ stories present characters in the midst of deeply disturbing, often arcane, scenarios. In “To Bite a Dog,” that scenario is more philosophical than it is magical, and the locating of this narrative during the recent COVID-19 pandemic brings an immediacy and desperation to the piece that makes it resonate with we survivors. In “Fogtown,” Veres plays with nostalgia and the form of traditional narratives to present a surreal scenario that has a powerful emotional impact. And in “Multiplied by Zero,” Veres shows us how deeply strange a typical office worker of no outstanding merit might become in order to find respite in nihilistic obliteration.

Surprisingly, Veres seems as adept at dark comedy as he is at the weird and unsettling. “Multiplied by Zero” is one such story with a comedic bent, though there the humor is as sharp and cutting as a razor blade. “Sky Filled With Crows, Then Nothing At All” is replete with humor, though the sentimental bent to this demon-infused morality tale causes it to avoid tipping over into full comedy–to its betterment and the surprise of the reader. And, though it might say more about me as a reader than anything else, I found a good amount of humor in “Walks Among You.” Though, again, the humor holds a philosophic purpose and is not without a dark, satirical drive behind it.

Though there is no real sign that Veres wants to create an overarching fictional universe in his stories, several are still linked by references both specific and oblique. “Multiplied by Zero” and “Walks Among You” are explicitly connected, for example. This is perhaps not surprising, given that those are the two stories where Lovecraft’s influence on Veres is felt most strongly. However, both “The Amber Complex” and “Fogtown” are also explicitly linked without any outside influence seemingly upon them. If anything drives those narratives as a unit, it is a sense of deep and abiding desperation for what was once a possibility but cannot now be grasped.

Those readers with little knowledge of Hungarian history or culture will not find themselves at sea in this collection. Veres’ writing is grounded in the soil of his mother nation, but it is not dependent on what nourishes it. There were only two elements that a non-Hungarian might be confused by, and neither of those were critical. To set potential readers at ease, “pálinka” is a traditional brandy much enjoyed in Hungary, and the “generational trauma” (p. 183) caused by the death of Prime Minister József Antall being announced during a Duck Tales cartoon did, in fact, lead to the creation of a flashbulb memory (and, later, an actual psychological issue) for a wide swath of Hungarians. Though the stories in The Black Maybe are rooted in Hungary, they are effortlessly understood by those from different shores.

So why, then, are these liminal tales, exactly? It seems to me that Veres’ narratives focus on two sorts of scenarios: characters who have been pushed to the margins of the world for one reason or another, or settings that fall far outside the norm of prosaic life despite still being part of the world at large. Veres never falls into the temptation of treating the former like puppets upon a sadistic stage, nor does he allow the latter to become nothing more than terrible place set dressings where no solace can be found. Indeed, there is beauty and sympathy throughout The Black Maybe, and perhaps that is the most remarkable quality of the collection. Horrific events abound, and awful people populate many of these pages, but the nostalgic, often surreal actions they carry out or fall victim to are rarely, if ever, presented with a sense that these people, these locations, are far removed from us and the spaces we call home.

It may be the case (and thankfully so) that we will never find ourselves confronting the reality of “The Midnight School” or in the nightmarishly hallucinatory spa of “In the Snow, Sleeping.” And yet, with The Black Maybe, Veres makes us remember the beliefs that we were raised with, the horrific encounters we’ve had, the music and nightlife we’ve been drawn to, and the desire to escape the banal uniformity we’ve occasionally been trapped in. Further, he reminds us that these moments, however slight–however liminal–are nonetheless significant. Sometimes monstrously so, but always remarkably.

The Black Maybe is hopefully not the last volume of Attila Veres’ work translated into and published in English. It receives a hearty recommendation from me if for no other reason than the selfish fact that I want to see more from this talented author–and that means getting as many as I can to read what he’s offered us thus far. Pick up The Black Maybe–you won’t be disappointed.

Published in Dead Reckonings no. 32.

Dr. Géza A. G. Reilly is a writer and critic with an interest in twentieth-century American genre literature. A Canadian expatriate, he now lives in the wilds of Florida with his wife, Andrea, and their cat, Mim.

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