Stephen Gallagher: "The Governess: A Professor Challenger Story as told by Mr. Edward Malone..." (2020 chapbook) Brooligan Press: a Short Story Wednesday review

Stephen Gallagher is a deft hand in at least two media, prose and scriptwriting (primarily for television drama), and his Brooligan Press has republished his own work and offered volumes by others, including  fiction-writer and film critic Anne Billson, whose novel The Ex had only previously been self-published through CreateSpace (other novels by her had been published by actual publishing houses), as well as having offered some original chapbooks, such as this one. Among his most popular work in both forms has been related to the literary creations and extra-literary career of Arthur Conan Doyle, perhaps most famously The Kingdom of Bones, both as a novel and an episode of Murder Rooms, the British anthology series; this, as the careful annotation above suggests, is a pastiche of Doyle's Professor Challenger and Malone stories, one which doesn't require having read much of the original Challenger stories (I've read perhaps two, and those probably 45 years ago) for enjoyment, though I suspect the enjoyment will be deepened.

Malone approaches Challenger, after Malone's divorce from the older man's daughter, that divorce inspired by Malone's dalliance with another woman that had resulted in a son (Gallagher has Challenger refer to the "illegitimate" child as a "b----" [Gallagher's self-censorship], in the Proper argot of Doyle's early career). Unfortunately, the child has died, and Malone has begun to be haunted...perhaps Challenger can be persuaded to help, for the child's spirit's  sake. Thus some dealings with an unsavory mystic (as distinct from the mediums Challenger is more comfortable with) and a rather Dante-esque and cosmic discovery awaits them all, including a meeting with the titular force. 

It's great fun, and perches cheerfully at the borders of horror and fantasy, as well as being expert historical pastiche. 

The Governess has "repurposed" illustrations appropriate to "its era" by Walter S. Stacy (1846-1929) and, as one admirer noted in an even briefer review, even provides its ads for other Gallagher volumes in the Edwardian style.

For more of this week's short stories, please see Patti Abbott's blog.