Sunless Sea
Down to a Sunless Sea                                     Two Reviews
Mathias B. Freese

Reviewed by Ashley Merrill

Not being a big fan of short stories, I looked into this book before agreeing to read it. Realizing that Mathias B. Freese has worked in the mental health field for many years sparked my interest.  Also working in the mental health field, I was intrigued enough to agree to read these stories when I found that Mathias B. Freese focused his stories on deviant and damaged people.  This was right up my alley!

I got through these stories in one short afternoon and found I enjoyed most of them very much; One of my favorites being Echo. From the way I interpreted this short story, Jonathan is a man who has been making friends and connections with people his whole life.  He enjoys these feelings of friendships, but at the same time stays somewhat aloof from making a deep connection.  Realizing his pattern of making friends just to later break up the friendships and be alone again, he explains all of this to a current friend of his just before breaking it off with him.  Soon after he ends this friendship, he also breaks off his relationship with his wife. 

Jon is unable to think about and understand the hurt that he is causing to these people. Instead, he focuses on the strange feelings of fulfillment and release he gets when abandoning these relationships.  This is a terrible way to live and shows how damaged Jon really is.  This is a harsh reality that he will probably live with for the rest of his life.

Mathias B. Freese writes very clear and concise, not adding any unnecessary details to his stories. He is a powerful writer who kept me entertained throughout all of his stories. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys short stories, but more importantly, to those who enjoy the darker side of humanity.  It is like stepping into a therapy session where nothing is off limits to talk about and you learn all of the deep, dark secrets of these troubled individuals.  You can’t talk back and offer solutions, but it really jumpstarts your mind and gives you a lot to think about!

Reviewed by Jenny Salyers

Down to a Sunless Sea is a collection of fifteen short stories written by Mathias B. Freese. I have mixed feelings about this slim book. On one hand, there are a few gems in the collection. Then on the other hand, there are others that just seem to fall short of the mark. It took me a longer time than I usually take to commit myself to reading this book.

The author, uses his experiences and observations gained from twenty-five years as a clinical social worker and psychologist in crafting his stories. Most of them, are rather dark, keeping with the author’s dark view of humanity (something he has readily admitted to having). However, a few of the stories show both humor and a moving look at how we view life. In the introduction, Down to a Sunless Sea is promoted as “plunging the reader into uncomfortable situations and into the minds of troubled characters.” This is a very apt statement, but in my opinion a few of the stories just seemed abrupt, and the characters not given as much of an opportunity to establish themselves as they could. The stories, written over a thirty-year time frame delve deeply into the human psyche, and are excellently written if a bit raw and packed with emotion.

I found the story “Alabaster” to be one of most moving of the collection. This story introduces an old Polish woman and her daughter. The mother, a survivor of the Holocaust and her devoted daughter live in the neighborhood, but do not easily interact with their neighbors. They sit together, and alone, until their lives are brightened briefly by a small boy who is too young to know of the tragedy that they had lived through. He, after hearing from the old woman of her experiences during WWII, reads the tattoo she still carries out loud, wondering who 7859912 was. A person, the old woman can not tell him was herself as others had seen her, an undesirable, and not the alabaster armed young girl she once was.

The other stories I found enjoyable in the collection were:
“Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Father was a Nazi”
“Echoes”.
“Herbie”
“Mortise and Tenon”
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