 Freese crafts his stories to reach the peak point of conflict in the character’s life shortly after he lays the groundwork about the character’s weakness. Typically, these stories start after the character realizes how their life was shaped by their relationship with someone—friend, parent etc., especially those that wield emotional power over them.
Reviewed by Sheri Harper
Down to a Sunless Sea
by Mathias B. Freese
Wheatmark Press
ISBN: 978-1-58736-733-5, Paperback: 148 pages, November 2007
Down to a Sunless Sea by Mathias B. Freese is a collection of fifteen strongly characterized stories that intrigue because they are so unusual. Most of the stories were previously published. The collection holds together based on a theme of the internal sea of emotion that people hide from the world but that directs choice.
Freese crafts his stories to reach the peak point of conflict in the character’s life shortly after he lays the groundwork about the character’s weakness. Typically, these stories start after the character realizes how their life was shaped by their relationship with someone—friend, parent etc., especially those that wield emotional power over them. The stories are written in a non-judgmental fashion and provide adequate fuel for thought about the health of our society, for evaluating our own relationships and for understanding human motivations.
All of the stories rely on minimal action to carry the story forward. Plot is largely a function of a life-changing event brought into sharp focus. Yet the story’s power comes from the believable change that occurs following the event.
In “Mortise and Tenon”, strong-willed Clare dominates her young son Edward and the matchup between these two characters ends in tragedy. Why do we feel surprised when it happens? The answer often lies in the hidden personal relationships between the individuals. We believe that family relationships are supposed to nurture. In this story, Freese paints a situation and a conversation between mother and son, then allows the characters to react in a logical manner. A second story “Billy’s Mirrored Wall” tells another story between mother and son but focuses more on values than on emotions.
In comparison, “Unanswerable” tells the tale of lost innocence when a father betrays a young son’s view of the world. Like “Mortise and Tenon”, the father has power over the son, but instead of forging a strongly emotional relationship, the action dissolves what confidence existed. In “Herbie”, two friends plan to create a business that is affected by family views.
Three stories investigate unhealthy personality styles that came from unsatisfied relationships. In “Nicholas”, the story unfolds from the titled characters point of view and portrays the relationship between student and teacher. Nicholas is defiant and the teacher unwilling to recognize his individuality. In “Echo”, a story that gets its title from the myth of Narcissus, two friends interact in evaluating their
own relationship as well as to their wives. The ending to “Young Man” explains clearly the impact of a negative person in a family.
In general, the stories gain much of their strength from Freese’s poetically rich use of language and history. Setting is selected to provide a foil for the story. Having seen paintings by Klimt adds a layer of understanding to “Mortise and Tenon”. History adds to “Juan Peron’s Hands”, “Alabaster”, and “Arnold Swatzenegger’s Father was a Nazi”. The most poetic of the collection is “For Awhile, Here, in this Moment” which uses the sea to paint a lifetime of experience in an immediate sense: “In my sickbed, I am eons old, cubits wide…” Overall, Freese uses the language of emotion to paint stories that invite many readings that many people with an interest in the human psyche will find of interest. All resound with the experience in understanding human psychology brought from Mathias B. Freese’s experience as a social worker and psychotherapist.
About the reviewer: Sheri Fresonke Harper is a poet and writer. She's been published in many small journals and is working on her second science fiction novel. See www.sfharper.com
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