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A review by spenkevich
Song for the Unraveling of the World: Stories by Brian Evenson
4.0
‘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.’
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.’