I read most of these perfectly-crafted stories in a single evening alone in a bedroom far from home. In the midst of reading one story I found particularly horrific, I glanced up at the wall. There was a painting of a moonlit lake next to a rocky shore limned entirely in blue. In my current headspace, I felt what can only be described as an “Evensonian impulse” creeping up my spine—to get out of my bed and walk toward the painting until I had passed through the canvas interstice into that sad navy wilderness. That’s the power of Evenson’s stories: not that he merely tells you about the squishy places in the membrane between our world and worlds beyond, but that he plants within your mind the certainty—which all children feel but adults tend to doubt—that you have already fallen through. Get lost in these stories. I hope you make it back.
Good Night, Sleep Tight by Brian Evenson, (List Price: $19, Coffee House Press, 9781566897099, September 2024)
Reviewed by Charlie Monroe, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina