The reason I picked up this (original) collection was, of course, the short story “The Hospice.” Which is indeed terrific, not only as a “strange story” but as an intensely disturbing horror story. As for most of the other stories, alas, they’re not my cup of tea.
To call these stories “strange,” it appears to me, is a polite way of saying that they leave the reader baffled at the end. (Or even fall flat, as in “The Swords,” except if you cast everything in psychoanalytical terms.) But that’s not the only thing that makes them less enjoyable than they could be. Behind each story, in general, is an interesting and promising core idea. But the bulk of the story then develops more or less like a mainstream story, which, while nicely written, has only vaguely to do with the core idea, if at all, and fails to fall into place and connect with the ending.
In one of the stories, “Pages from a Young Girl’s Journal,” the reverse happens, but not in its favor. The mainstream narrative develops along curious motifs that are more intriguing than the story’s core idea itself (the more so as this core idea and its outcome are obvious two pages in). And in the end it’s not the perfectly clear ending that is baffling, for a change, but that all the other mysterious ongoings have fallen by the wayside. (This story is quite famous too, and I read a few reviews that made sort of sense in, again, psychoanalytical terms, so your mileage may vary.)
To wrap it up, there are two stories in this collection I’d wholeheartedly recommend: “The Hospice,” as mentioned, and “Meeting Mr Millar.” The latter might leave you baffled as well, but the increasingly rambunctious events around that mysterious new tenant Mr. Millar are well written and thoroughly enjoyable.
Aickman, Robert. Cold Hand in Mine: Eight Strange Stories. Gollanz, 1975. Reprint Faber, 2014.