Happy Halloween folks! Lets end this spooky month on a high note. It’s been harder and harder to resist short stories these days. They’re short, sweet and to the point. Never Whistle At Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology is a collection of short stories written by Indigenous folks, edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. The collection is introduced by Stephen Graham Jones who really sets the tone for the anthology. This is certainly a collection I won’t forget anytime soon.
Most short story collections are tough to write about because of the sheer number of stories contained within. Now twenty-six stories is not the most I’ve dealt with in a single collection, but it’s still a heckuva lot. The dark fiction subtitle also leaves a lot of wiggle room, letting some stories soar higher than if it had been a “horror collection.” Don’t get me wrong, there are scary stories to be had in Never Whistle At Night. However, the fascination for me is being immersed in what is considered terrifying from these indigenous authors’ perspectives, and some of the themes that converge by nature of being adjacent to one another.
One of the main themes that sticks out amongst this collection is the anxiety centered on belonging. It isn’t the standard western theme of whether or not you find acceptance in a group, but more along the lines of one’s responsibility to the group. Since this is indigenous fiction, there is a lot of exploration with one’s relationship to the tribe, their family, and their surrounding community. Oftentimes the horror stems from being alienated from it. Not say, in the way Carrie is ostracized, but in a way that suggests you may have done harm to the collective, or you’ve been neglecting your responsibilities to the greater group. It was a nice change of pace to find horror in alienation that was an individual’s fault, not the work of some jeering dickheads that thought you looked funny.
There are several stories that played with this idea, but it wasn’t until I read Scariest. Story. Ever. by Richard Van Camp where it started to pull it all together for me. A man enters a short story contest and in order to win, contacts an elder who knows the scariest story to help him win. But the elder knows better, and plays coy, revealing to the author his intentions. It’s a story within a story, and the elder provides a great buildup to the final reveal. Through the story, he breaks down the author’s defenses, and strips him of any notion of entering the contest. What makes the story work is the goading done by the elder as he recounts the tale, pointing out where the author is trying to get one over on him, and reminding him of his responsibility to the tribe. It’s a heartwarming tale that also digs into the psyche of the individual, breaking it down to its basic desires.
This story helped to contextualize the rest of the collection, and reframe some of the earlier pieces. It encapsulated a lot of the ideas that Jones plays with in the introduction. It’s not that previous stories didn’t portray this theme, in fact some were very blunt with this idea. Two that stood in good contrast were Quantum by Nick Medina and White Hills by Rebecca Roanhoarse. In both stories the protagonists are trying to become a part of the group. Medina’s story follows a mother who finds that one of her sons qualifies for the blood quantum threshold and can be placed on the tribal roll while the other cannot. It drives her into an obsession, making sure that the one son is properly native while the other is totally neglected. It becomes a belonging based on consumption and genetics, and the reveal at the end is heartbreaking. Roanhorse’s story involves a young woman who has just married into an elite white family, wherein they find out she is part native. Classic “don’t taint our blood” racism ensues while she tries to maintain her place within the family. It spirals into a final blood curdling choice in which she must choose how to be perceived.
Similarly, The Prepper by Morgan Taltey, dives even further into the subject of alienation provoked by an obsessive need to protect one’s family. It’s a brutal tale of one man’s slow descent into the delusion that a zombie apocalypse is on the horizon. He buys guns, has a shelter prepared and a plan for the eventual date. He is surrounded by stress, and the coming death of someone close to him and being powerless to stop it. Instead of learning to cope with his family, he turns to prepping. The story starts with the aftermath where he has been imprisoned for a mass murder spree and ends with the same. It’s a haunting tale that really uses the zombie tropes to expand on who needs them and why, and the disasters that come about from them.
Needless to say this collection is chock full of wonderfully dark stories that really dig into the human psyche, and tries to find what plagues them from an Indigenous perspective. So many of these stories spoke to me on a deeper level, and there are quite a few I want to revisit. Some of the real standouts for me beyond the ones I already discussed were Heart Shaped Clock by Kelli Jo Ford, Capgras by Tommy Orange, Kushtuka by Mathilda Zeller, and The Longest Street In The World by Theodore Van Alst (which was just magnificently written). It’s the kind of collection that makes me want to read more horror and spend time finding the stuff I know I will like. So if you want that little extra spooky factor that might truly haunt you, not because of the imagery, but because of the psychic damage that it may incur, pick up Never Whistle At Night.
Rating: Never Whistle at Night – Heed the warning, but don’t let it hinder you from picking it up.
-Alex
