October Reading; “Scare Tactics”

Just in time for spooky season - a surprising collection of short horror stories that bend what the genre can do and be. My latest work is pitched as “a psychological thriller for an audience of one.” Similar to Machado, I’m hoping audiences are willing to challenge and stretch their understanding of what a “thriller” is, and embrace the possibility that real terror is sometimes quiet, insidious, and inside us all along.

(but don’t take my word for it - come find out yourself!)

(or don’t if you hate everything even remotely scary or intense)

(or, if you think you could be scare-curious, maybe grab a copy of the book below, get real weird, and see how you like it)

“Her Body and Other Parties”

Carmen Maria Machado, 2017

This is a weird book, full stop. Machado is not afraid to really get sexy, gruesome, psychological, supernatural, and absurd - sometimes all in the same paragraph. As someone writing various horrors in real time (I still won’t say “improvising,” but that’s a different blog post), this book is like a serious of workouts to stretch my conception of what the uncanny, uncomfortable, and otherwise unsettling can be - and to study the ways the bizarre can coexist with hyperreal settings and characters.

"Real Women Have Bodies" is touching and sad. "The resident" is as disorienting and paranoia-inducing as the fog it often features. "Especially heinous" feels like a fever dream in a recliner in front of a TNT marathon.

But hands down the winner of the set for me is “The Husband Stitch.” I often describe this book as the “total eclipse of the heart” of short stories; in the same way that song has enough hooks and catchy lines for 3 top 40 tracks, Machado’s “Husband Stitch” masterfully weaves together a handful of literary devices, plots, and subversions of classic horror stories that build something worthy of the horrific practice it evokes. This whole book is a feral, strange ride, and no story does that for me as much as this first one - which incidentally, a person could find right here.

RELATED READING

“The Green Ribbon”

From “In a Dark, Dark Room,” by Alvin Schwartz

The main story Machado reimagines in “The Husband Stitch” is an old folktale called “the green ribbon.” If you’re like me, you first found it in his collection, which was part of an era of scary children’s books kids had no business reading. Looking for it again, I was amazed how short the version I first read was—Machado really takes the many meanings of this fable and gives them space to unfurl.

“Go Ask Alice, w. Carmen Maria Machado"

You’re Wrong About, 2022

I’ve been a consistent fan of this podcast for the way it dives into how misconceptions so often form the narrative around the stories we as a culture tell, both in specific, real-life cases and general moral panics. So while I have no attachment to the infamous (and dubious) anti-drug memoir “Go Ask Alice,” I was delighted to find an author I enjoy so much pop up in my feed. The appeal of podcasts so often is the idea of “spending time” with voices we admire, trust, or enjoy, and this two-part series is a great conversation between host Sarah Marshall and Machado. I find that a great compassion for her characters underrides all of Machado’s short stories, and her compassion is on display here.

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And there you have it! Three diminishingly terrifying offerings for your October season. Soon we’ll have some readings from “Her Body,” along with hard data on the returns of alternative payment structures (the real psychological thriller!)

Until then,

Yannick Trapman-O’Brien