Strange Horizons, October 14, 2013

“Three on a Match” by Steve Berman

Reviewed by Matthew Nadelhaft

This week’s issue of Strange Horizons features a sexy little ghost story by Steve Berman. In “Three on a Match,” Antony has brought Ewan back to his dorm room to smoke and have sex – and talk about ghosts. It’s an interesting method of flirting: as they share cigarettes and camaraderie, Anthony introduces Ewan to “Beauty,” the ghost who shares his room and can only be seen when outlined by cigarette smoke. Antony’s unhealthy habit is fueled by his obsession for the silent, motionless figure. The two smoke, fool around, and speculate about whether a kiss might wake the spectre – and whether or not “Beauty” bears any relation to a suicide attempt Ewan witnessed and tried to prevent.

As much as this is a story about ghosts, it is also a paean to college life, with its dirty rooms, heated encounters, diet of coffee and cigarettes. It’s written with a homey charm, a kind of nostalgia for something that wasn’t really that great in the first place. The genre content is slim and primarily contributes to the romanticism of the encounter between Ewan and Antony – aren’t most ghost stories, essentially, romances? What ghost stories are really about is the yearning for there to be something more to this world, something inexplicable, something both frightening and sexy, a dangerous magic we can explore but never really comprehend or control. Which makes them a phenomenal vehicle for investigations of youth, sexuality, experimentation: all those things we miss about our college days, or wish they had contained in the first place.