I love short story collections, in fact, I’m in-love with them. I was first introduced to Brian Evenson’s writing as an undergrad in a fiction workshop class. We read “Windeye” and I was drawn to his writing ever since. The story was so intriguing and the narrative voice engaging and seemingly natural–crafting at its finest.
For Christmas one year, I treated myself to Evenson’s collection Song for the Unraveling of the World and it has become a bedside crutch. Whenever I am thinking about how I am going to move my characters from one point to another through setting or if I am thinking about the unreliability of my narrator or the unreliability of the world around them, Evenson has a story doing just that.
I have some favorites, but I think what needs to be said most of all is that Evenson’s work is what horror and weird fiction invite at their best: the uncertainty of who we are and the world we inhabit. Situations and seemingly impossible worlds that exist outside of what we consider the “real” world are written as immersive norms and you can’t help but become immediately invested in the protagonist(s) as he or she goes on a quick journey of discovery and unsettling fulfillment or lack of.
Happy Reading!
Julie
Notes from the Boat 