The Torturer's Apprentice: Stories

Recently, excessive use of the "writer as craftsman" metaphor has rendered the comparison insufferably precious. Nonetheless, for many writers "craft" is the only word that accurately conveys the level of care and skill they bring to their work. What first strikes a reader of John Biguenet’s stories is the elegant precision of his sentences: "It was late in adolescence that my childhood friend Gregory first gave evidence of the unique talent that would doom him to the most pathetic of fates." One imagines Biguenet lighting one cigarette from the last while tinkering endlessly with each sentence, worrying over each word, until he has achieved the precise effect he’s after.

But as the results of countless writer’s workshops have clearly demonstrated, excellent craftsmanship is not always enough. Many beautifully written stories are as lifeless as salt flats. To create a great work of fiction, a writer must also have a rich imagination, a clear moral perspective, and a deep curiosity for all things human. Of course, whether or not John Biguenet is a "great" writer will only be determined in time, but the evidence of his first collection of stories, The Torturer’s Apprentice, suggests that he has all the required attributes.

Like many southerners (Biguenet is from New Orleans) John Biguenet has a taste for gothic excess. His chilling title story explores the relationship between a medieval torturer and the young boy he takes as his protege. The torturer is both drawn to and disturbed by the boy's abiding decency. Of course, such a relationship will not end well. But the exquisite tension Biguenet builds in the seven pages it takes to get to the story’s final, disturbing revelation leaves his reader deeply troubled – not so much by his protagonist’s barbarity as by the unsettling sympathy the reader is made to feel for this appalling character.

While several of these stories are equally dark, as many others are quietly poignant. For example, in "The Open Curtain" a failing salesman experiences an epiphany that breathes renewed life into his dull existence. When, just as unexpectedly, his life reverts to its lifeless status quo, his overpowering sense of loss is truly, and magnificently, heartbreaking.

Most of these stories have been previously published to critical success. But with all fourteen gathered together for the first time, the cumulative effect is stunning. John Biguenet is without question a remarkable and important new talent.

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