Came to this collection from Glassy Burning Floor of Hell and was not terribly impressed with this one. Like the title implies, the stories here depict worlds, social and material, falling apart at the hands of various monsters and social transgressions (including a high proportion of skin monsters and monster POV stories), but the tropes here don't feel as exciting or original as Glassy. The stories are solidly constructed, some even surprising, but most are fairly expected and unexciting. The weirdness of Glassy is missing here, or maybe it only felt so weird because it was my first Evenson.

‘After all, I already know I am not as stable as I have been led to believe. How hard could it possibly be to no longer be me?’

Brian Evenson has a talent for conducting tone while turning the screw of tension and terror until you want to scream out. Song for the Unraveling of the World, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, is an endlessly enjoyable fright fest that navigates the bleak corners of the human psyche as well as it does monsters and other menace. A girl is born without a face, a man takes shelter in an abandoned home to discover a creature has plans for him, another man spends years walking to avoid a gaze he feels at all times only to discover himself following his younger self, things go missing and all the while minds are coming unraveled. I read this a year ago and some stories still haunt me today.

What works best is the way Evenson compounds details upon details, slowly revealing a little more but always hinting much more lurks just unread around the turn of each page. While this can occasionally feel incomplete, it is precisely this feeling of dangling at the precipice that evokes so much horror and dread—the monster unseen is always more horrific than the one seen because it can shapeshift to fit any horror in your imagination and the unknown can seem like an infinite space for terror. These stories are great fun and Evensons twists ensnare you like a monster leaping out from the darkness, consuming you with every wonderfully written passage. Great reading for a spooky evening.

4/5

‘But this is not that kind of story, the kind meant to explain things. It simply tells things as they are, and as you know there is no explanation for how things are, at least none that would make any difference and allow them to be something else.’

This was kind of meh and samey. I enjoyed The Hole. Also Smear and Lord of the Vats because space horror gets me!

My favorite stories: No Matter Which Way We Turned, Room Tone, The Tower, The Second Door, Smear, Lord of the Vats
My least favorite stories: Sisters, Trigger Warnings (! ! !), Menno, A Disappearance, Shirts and Skins

Things I love about this book: Evenson's ability to concisely creep you out. There were TONS of one-liners in this collection that were so inventively used (see: Licked Clean). I found the minimalist writing in the sci-fi-esque stories that I liked to be really effective. For me, Evenson's writing is at its best when it's minimal, turning on a dime, and using words and phrases in ways that I wasn't aware could be terrifying. He is terribly creative and has the creepy short story form down pat.

Things I didn't love about this book: It can definitely be said that Evenson has a specific style. While that is fine and normal (lol duh), several of the stories in this collection felt like a different cool, creative idea with the same "is anything real???" "no it's not!!! hahahahaha skin licked clean out leaking out of the corner of your eye OOP IT'S RIGHT BEHIND YOU" plot structure. I think this collection could have been 4 stars for me personally if Trigger Warnings, Shirts and Skins, Menno, and a Disappearance were left out of the final cut. I just found them to be less interesting iterations of Brian's captivating writing style, except for Trigger Warnings. Brian, what the hell? That shit was just not good. Also, side note: Wanderlust was clever, sure, but all I could hear in my head the whole time I was reading it was "Oh my God, I've gotta gotta gotta gotta move on//Where do you move when what you're moving from Iis yourself?" from Never Ending Math Equation by Modest Mouse. I feel as though this tarnished the experience because I thought "it's been done, Brian!!" to myself the whole time even though it was a good story. Also also, my eyes almost rolled out of my head at the preachy bro-iness of Shirts and Skins.

Overall, I had a mixed experience with this one. I will be, however, reading more Brian Evenson in the future, because I am hoping that I will see more of what I loved about some of the stories here in other collections. I feel like I would have enjoyed these stories more individually in other collections, but to read them all one after another left me feeling like they were repetitive.