“Memories of Día de los Muertos” by Nancy Kilpatrick
The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories (2018) edited by Stephen Jones
Readers unfamiliar with The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories may prefer to read these notes only after reading the anthology.
On the Day of the Dead, a man confronts his fear of death and the inevitability of his own mortality as he encounters a supernatural being in a graveyard.
Setting: A cemetery in Mexico during the Day of the Dead celebration.
Characters: An unnamed narrator who is Death; a man visiting his mother's grave.
Halloween seen as: A time when the veil between the living and the dead is thin.
Style: Lyrical, poetic, with a focus on mort
ality and acceptance.
Point of view: First person, from Death's perspective
Jay
