Dark Highways by Megat Ishak

Dark Highways is a concoction of thriller, violence, imagination, sexual themes and love story (and more!), blended together and presented to the readers in the form of 13 short stories.  Reading a collection of short stories provides a different experience from that of a full novel; the reader is thrown into 13 different worlds with different surroundings and consequently providing the opportunities of living through 13 life experiences and facing the different realities of life. The readers are introduced to colorful and dark characters, each with his/her own personality, flaw, weirdness, values and hidden past. In this book, readers are served with stories of dark themes that naturally remind us to the evil that men are capable of doing, especially to the hated ones.

Megat’s works remind me of Stephen King’s writings, John Carpenters’ movies and the unpredictable plots from The Twillight Zone and The Outer Limits television series. There are no guarantees of happy endings, plenty of unexpected twists and you should be prepared to digest goriness, horror and disturbing endings.  It took me more than 2 months to finish reading it, partly due to some of the horrifying stories and gruesome nature of the violence crafted by the author in his writings.  I had to deal with some, and relax for some time before I could continue. In a way, that shows how good the author is.

My favorite stories include Grotto, Paradise Lost, Mr. Bolero and The Contract with Mr. Cadeer.

An interesting feature of this book is that the writer shares his creative processes, mental experiences and his own take on each of his story. This allows the readers to learn and relate to the complexities of writing.