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Originally from Baltimore, MD, Cabiling is an avid fan of short fiction and has lived in Richmond, Va. for the past 13 years. A depression patient, Cabiling has sought to shed light on the devastating effects of the condition and the relative lack of understanding that complicates relationships between loved ones and patients suffering from the illness. His 2009 collection of poetry, The Darkest Day, published by Praenomen Press of Richmond, Va. in limited quantities, chronicles his own experiences with depression and is a bright example of how the arts can provide therapeutic value during the recovery period. His latest release, Insanity By Increments, showcases this in rich detail, featuring characters and secenes that depict melancholy moods in shades of distress.
Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite
Insanity By Increments: Stories is a collection of literary short stories written by Alaric Cabiling. The nine stories that comprise this collection seem to share a theme of dislocation and/or alienation; many of their heroes are cold, disaffected or out of step with the world. The first story, Once Found, Once More Forsaken, is narrated by a man who admires his talented, eccentric and adventurous older brother and whose visit he has anticipated and prepared for with care and the deli meats he knows his brother loves. The brother comes and swirls through town in his Lamborghini; his old girlfriend throwing herself at him barely out of sight of her husband and his propensity to violence. "I never loved her," he tells his younger brother and is gone in the morning, almost as if he had never been there at all.
Inside Alaric Cabiling's literary short story collection, Insanity By Increments lurk compelling and darkly edgy gems that grab the reader's attention, toy with him for a few brief moments, and then toss him aside casually, without an afterthought while each succeeding story dares the undaunted audience to try again. The mood in these stories is stormy and oppressive and still somehow so seductive that I found myself unable to put Insanity By Increments Down. And after finishing the concluding, and title, story, I thought to read the first story once again and so retrace the cycle, but thought it best to wait a bit and let the dark magic settle down to safer levels. Cabiling is a master at creating moods, especially those which border on the macabre, the obsessive and the melancholy. Each word seems selected carefully, examined and put in place just so, and the flawed and flailing characters he peoples his work with become almost familiar to the reader as he himself is...and that's a pretty scary thing, and the handiwork of a powerful and creative writer. Insanity By Increments: Stories is most highly recommended.
