Keyhole

Several writers, Arthur Machen among them, have spoken of their certainty of our co-existence with another world – one that we are close to in our daily lives and from which we are separated by the finest partition; a place of ancient forces and wisdom, and darker, more peculiar things.

In his collection of short stories, Keyhole, Matthew G. Rees takes us through that divide and acquaints us with the places and inhabitants of this other world. Yet his stories aren’t mere escapism for their roots remain in our own recognisable universe. And it is here that we keep a foothold, sometimes only a fingerhold, as we reach into and explore the other. So it is that Rees’s eighteen extraordinary stories take us from strange seashores, across ragged farms, along eerie waterways and over mist-shrouded mountains, to altered small towns and one-time heartlands of industry where the mining has stopped and the quarries stand still.

While Keyhole represents his first collection, Matthew G. Rees has been described as an unusually talented and inventive writer. The word ‘masterpiece’ has been applied to one of his previous tales. As well as writing short stories, he is a scholar of the form and has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Swansea. Although having his own ‘voice’ and employing modern settings, readers might detect a lineage with such writers as Arthur Machen, Glyn Jones and Roald Dahl. The British literary and cinematic tradition of ‘folk horror’ can also be seen in his work.

Matthew G. Rees grew up in a Welsh family in the border country between England and Wales known as the Marches. His early career was in journalism. Later he entered teaching, working for a while in Moscow. Diverse other employment has included time as a taxi driver where he found that the shift that he preferred was at night.