What is the author's style in Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman?

Most of Neil Gaiman's stories can be read on two or even three levels. They can be read as straight stories of the supernatural or the strange, but they can also be read as metaphors for various different things. Magic is often used as a metaphor for lost youth or childhood, and ghosts are often symbolic of painful memories. In "Closing Time," the sinister playhouse perhaps represents some terrible event in the past involving the abuse of the three brothers at the hands of their father. These painful memories have been associated with supernatural events as a way to cope with them. The playhouse can also be seen as a symbol of lost childhood innocence.