GhoStory Guru: “The Hold” by Koji Suzuki

From Koji Suzuki—the man who brought you Ring, Spiral, and Loop—comes Dark Water, a collection of ghost stories in which the title element plays a major role.[1]

The finest in this collection is “The Hold,” a tale of a Conger Eel fisherman searching for his wife. Part mystery, part Poe-esque study, clues foreshadowing the piece’s end are skillfully wrought through the text: “Since the rubber flaps prevented the conger eels from escaping, they would squirm around in the dark slippery tube. Hiroyuki was definitely not one for metaphors, but he thought the slippery squirming interior of the tube and the struggling eel resembled nothing so much as sexual intercourse.”[2] Want to know what that has to do with anything? In “The Hold” it’s about what writhes in wait beneath the surface—and there’s a new, chilling discovery each time you plunge into a new page.

You can find “The Hold” in Suzuki’s 2004 Dark Water. To purchase the 2006 paperback release, visit here: http://amzn.com/1932234225


[1] For those of you who are wondering, the American film Dark Water is based on the book’s first story, entitled “Floating Water.”

[2] Koji Suzuki, “The Hold,” in Dark Water (New York: Vertical, Inc.), 113. Please note this collection was originally published in Japan as Honogurai mizu no soko kara by Kadokawa Shoten, Tokyo, 1996.

About kristipetersenschoonover

A ghost story writer who still sleeps with the lights on, Kristi Petersen Schoonover’s fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies; her traditionally published books include a short story collection, THE SHADOWS BEHIND. She was the recipient of three Norman Mailer Writers Colony Residencies and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. She serves as co-host of the DARK DISCUSSIONS podcast, as founding editor of the dark literary journal 34 ORCHARD, and is a member of both the New England Horror Writers and the Horror Writers Association. Follow her adventures at kristipetersenschoonover.com.

Posted on June 23, 2011, in GhoStory Guru and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.

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