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Book Review: When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson edited by Ellen Datlow

cover art for When Things Get Dark edited by Ellen Datlow

When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson edited by Ellen Datlow

Titan Books, 2021

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1789097153

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org  | Amazon.com  )

 

Shirley Jackson couldn’t have known the impact her writing would have on the horror genre, speculative fiction, and literature in general: she was writing to pay the bills. Yet her work has resonated with readers and writers for both its depictions of domesticity, such as her fictionalized memoir, Life Among the Savages, and of the uncanny, seen in short stories like “The Lottery” and her most famous novels, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (and sometimes both together). In When Things Get Dark, well-known anthology editor Ellen Datlow has collected tales by talented writers of horror, the uncanny, and the weird, inspired by Shirley Jackson’s work.

 

A number of stories take place within suburbia, with the uncanny just beneath a placid surface. Laird Barron’s “Tiptoe” focuses on uneasy family dynamics and the necessity of keeping up appearances, and “For Sale By Owner” by Elizabeth Hand, is a meandering story about three elderly women with a habit of breaking into empty summer houses who hold a sleepover in an empty, beautiful old house, which turns out to be a disorienting and disturbing experience. In Richard Kadrey’s “A Trip to Paris”, a nod to We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a recent widow planning her escape from her mundane life has her nefarious actions revealed by a stubborn, growing patch of mold on her wall, while Jeffrey Ford’s “The Door in the Fence” documents the strange and surprising changes in the narrator’s next door neighbor after her husband dies.

 

Some stories take direct inspiration from Jackson’s work, such as Carmen Maria Machado’s “A Hundred Miles and a Mile”, which references the “cup of stars” from The Haunting of Hill House, and stories such as “Quiet Dead Things” by Cassandra Khaw and “Hag” by Benjamin Percy that describe insular communities and their deadly rituals like the one in “The Lottery”.

With others, it’s sometimes hard to see the connection, although the stories are interesting. In Seanan McGuire’s dark fairytale “In the Deep Woods; The Light is Different There”, a woman escaping an abusive husband retreats to her family’s lake house, where she discovers the caretakers are not what they seem. John Langan produces a compelling, surreal tale of family, the occult, and mythological creatures in “Something Like Living Creatures”. In the dread-inducing “Money of the Dead”, Karen Heuler addresses the problems with resurrection and obsessive love; Joyce Carol Oates’ “Take Me, I Am Free” is a bleak, heartbreaking story about a child whose angry mother attempts to throw her away; in Josh Malerman’s dystopian “Special Meal”, a young girl discovers the difficulties, and consequences, of hiding knowledge. Genevieve Valentine’s “Sooner or Later, Your Wife Will Drive Home” is a cleverly constructed story about smart women in unlucky situations they can’t escape, something Jackson could certainly relate to. There were a few stories that didn’t hit the mark: “Funeral Birds” petered out at the end, “Refinery Road” and “The Party” left me confused, and “Pear of Anguish” didn’t seem to fit the theme or mood of the anthology.

 

While there are many excellent stories, the three that stood out to me were the previously mentioned “Tiptoe”; “Take Me, I Am Free”, a bleak, heartbreaking story about a child whose angry mother attempts to give her away; and Kelly Link’s “Skinder’s Veil”, a strange tale about a graduate student struggling with writing his dissertation who takes a housesitting job in rural Vermont, with the only rules being that anyone knocking at the back door must be invited in, but the front door should never be opened. Those who come to the back door are an unusual bunch, and the consequences of that summer are significant for him.

 

It’s not necessary to be a fan of Shirley Jackson to enjoy this book, but it does help, especially with Machado’s story, which depends on context from The Haunting of Hill House. If you do pick up When Things Get Dark without having read Jackson first, you will want to by the time you finish. Recommended.

 

Contains: self-harm, torture, suicide, murder

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

 

Posted on October 28, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Book Review: Dying With Her Cheer Pants On: Stories of the Fighting Pumpkins by Seanan McGuire

cover art for Dying With Her Cheer Pants On: Tales of the Fighting Pumpkins

( Amazon.com  |  Subterranean Press  limited edition hardcover  | Subterranean Press ebook edition )

Dying With Her Cheer Pants On: Stories of the Fighting Pumpkins by Seanan McGuire

Subterranean Press, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-1596069978

Available: Direct from Subterranean Press (limited edition hardcover, ebook edition), and Kindle edition

 

Into every high school class a cheerleading squad must come to fight against the forces of darkness: aliens, mud monsters, and eldritch creatures.  Squads that don’t survive until graduation are forgotten, and a mysterious force chooses a new cheer captain to recruit a new squad. This tight-knit group of cheerleaders, who may or may not be supernatural themselves, are the Fighting Pumpkins of Johnson’s Crossing, California. These are their stories.

The stories have been published over time, in different places: I first encountered them in the story “Away Game”, a clever, if predictable, story that appears in A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods, edited by Jennifer Brozek, and have been seeking out their stories since then. I’m so glad they have now been collected together. Originally a limited edition published by Subterranean Press, the collection is now available as an ebook.

Because there have been many cheerleading squads over a long period of time, the stories can be set in a variety of time periods, with different characters. While the majority of the Fighting Pumpkins stories are linked stories about the same varsity squad, with half-vampire cheer captain Jude, squad historian Colleen, Laurie, who has a command voice, supernaturally strong Marti, and undead Heather, a few take place in other time periods and with other squads, such as the titular “Dying With Her Cheer Pants On”, in which the team dies calling Bloody Mary from a mirror during an alien invasion to exterminate the aliens, and “Switchblade Smile”, which features Jude’s mother Andrea, a vampire, as a cheerleader in the 1930s.

Character development is strong, and there is a lot of humor (how can there not be with a team called the Fighting Pumpkins?). McGuire draws from a kitchen-sink universe where any creature of the imagination can be real,  and remixes tropes to create her stories, but the sisterhood of the girls on the cheer squad is what makes the stories of the Fighting Pumpkins really enjoyable. Although a story might center on a specific character, these stories aren’t about a single individual or chosen one bound to save the world on her own. The girls are a team, and they stick together even when things are scary, or dangerous, or one of them turns out to be a monster. Two related stories that involve cheerleader Heather Monroe stood out as favorites, “Gimme a Z”, in which she rises from the grave and defends her sister Pumpkins from an undead mob, and “Turn the World Around”,  an often poetic story in which she helps a girl who mysteriously shows up in a Fighting Pumpkins uniform make a life-and-death decision that will affect the entire community. “School Colors” covers a cheerleading competition between the Fighting Pumpkins and an alien cheerleading squad that could decide the fate of the planet.

The stories of the Fighting Pumpkins are a little scary, but mostly a lot of fun. Those looking for a break from heavy or intense reading will find a lot to like, as will Buffy lovers.  YA readers may enjoy this collection as well.

 

Contains : strong language, violence, some gore. The story “Fiber” received some criticism from First Nations people regarding McGuire’s interpretation of the wendigo.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on February 21, 2021 by , Reply

Musings: Breaking Out of Your Reading Slump

A note from the editor:

We are now more than midway through October and Monster Librarian still needs to raise the funds to pay for our hosting fees and postage in 2021. If you like what we’re doing, please take a moment to click on that red “Contribute” button in the sidebar to the right, to help us keep going!  Even five dollars will get us closer to the $195 we need to keep going at the most basic level. We have never accepted paid advertising so you can be guaranteed that our reviews are objective. We’ve been reviewing and supporting the horror community for 15 years now, help us make it another year! Or, you can purchase titles mentioned in this post through our store at Bookshop.org. Thank you!

Horatio P. Bunnyrabbit with a pumpkin for trick-or-treating

For a list of the books mentioned in this post, check out the Monster Librarian store on Bookshop.org!

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October is the big month for the horror genre, and in hopes of getting up a review every day, I do a lot of reading in hopes that I can do exactly that. The pandemic has killed my ability to focus, though, and especially if I’m reading something long, it seems to take longer to read about it, think about it, and write about it. That’s especially true if I’m reading similar kinds of books– after awhile I just have to stop.

This has been especially aggravated by my library closing down and my kids’ schools going virtual so that I don’t get time in those libraries either. Libraries are my haven and not physically getting to be in that space is so difficult for me! I know I’m not the only person who is dealing with this right now. A dear friend of mine who typically gobbles up anything horror-related has stacks and stacks of books that he just keeps buying but is unable to focus enough to finish anything. So what can you do?

First, it’s okay to put a book down if you just can’t handle it.  I like ebooks for really long books because holding those in my hands gets me thinking on how much there is to read, which sometimes can be intimidating. Is your fiction too close to your current reality?  This month was not the month I needed to start watching The Man in the High Castle.  I also read Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House, not realizing how intense it was going to be. Reading Goodreads reviews after the fact, I found that readers were providing content warnings to potential future readers. If a book is stressing you out instead of entertaining you, you don’t need to keep going.

Second, mix it up! Short stories are great, and I love them, but if you’re reading several anthologies in a row from cover to cover, it’s no longer a vacation. I just finished the excellent SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire, edited by Nicole Givens Kurtz, so I’ll be switching to something different before I start another one. There are plenty of authors who don’t get the kind of attention they should, classic authors you might not have read, and new books coming out all the time. Reading T. Kingfisher’s new book The Hollow Places led me to track down The Willows by Algernon Blackwood. In addition to the HWA’s newly published series of genre classics, if you are short on funds, many classics are available free as ebooks through Project Gutenberg.

There’s some really good horror-related nonfiction out there, such as Lisa Morton’s recently released Calling The Spirits.  Although these can seem long, nonfiction is great because you can read a chapter and put it down for awhile until you’re ready to come back to it. Kit Powers’ My Life in Horror, Volume 1 is a series of standalone personal essays on growing up as a horror fan, easy to pick up and put down until you’re ready for more. You might also consider checking out some poetry. Even if you’re convinced it’s not your thing, Alessandro Manzetti’s Whitechapel Rhapsody might change your mind, although it’s not for the faint of stomach.

This is also a great time to check out some of the titles that tie into current television and movies. The HBO series   Lovecraft County is based on a book of the same name by Matt Ruff, a great book of interconnected stories. Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor riffs on the ghost stories of Henry James, notably The Turn of the Screw.

You don’t have to seek out anything new, though. I’ve reread some old favorites when I needed a break. Looking for something lighter? Maskerade by Terry Pratchett isn’t horror, but it is an entertaining riff on a story that definitely is, The Phantom of the Opera.  Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid series, starting with Discount Armageddon, takes a lighter approach to slayers, monsters, and ghosts than is typical for horror, but it is a lot of fun. Sometimes a thriller is what you need, as long as it’s not too close to life for you. Alyssa Cole, mostly known for her excellent romance novels, has an #OwnVoices thriller out right now on gentrification spiraling out of control titled When No One Is Watching, and David Simms has a supernatural thriller, Fear the Reaper, that reveals the dark history of American eugenics.

Despite protestations that they aren’t “real reading”, graphic novels definitely are, and if too many words on the page is a struggle right now, you might try them. Marjorie Liu’s Monstress has even won awards, Or try a novella. A recent entry into the novella category that I raced through was Stephen Graham Jones’ Night of the Mannequins.  There are a lot of great titles in the middle grade and YA fiction categories as well. No, you are not too old for good middle-grade fiction. If you haven’t read Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book in either its novel or graphic novel formats it is well past time.

If you are a doer or a maker, I don’t personally have the patience for audiobooks or most podcasts, but if you spend a lot of time driving or run long distance, that’s another opportunity. And it’s the perfect time of year to explore Halloween cookbooks and crafts! My son collected and loved these even before he could read them, and a lot of gruesome-looking foods are pretty easy to make. We’ve worn out Ghoulish Goodies!  There is even an unofficial Walking Dead cookbook called The Snacking Dead. 

Third, go outside. It’s a little cool where I am to go outside and sit and read right now, but I went for a long walk yesterday that really cleared my head and got me focused again. All the sitting inside, social media, news, attempting to get along with your family you’ve been stuck inside with for seven months leaves you feeling tired and your brain cloudy. Reading is supposed to be relaxing, but apparently you need to really relax before you can enjoy it.

Clear out your brain, clear space for yourself inside and out, turn off your television, and give yourself permission. It’s the Halloween time of year, so, whatever makes you feel the season, give yourself a treat.

Posted on October 22, 2020 by , Reply
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