Song for the Unraveling of the World: Stories

by Brian Evenson

A newborn’s absent face appears on the back of someone else’s head, a filmmaker goes to gruesome lengths to achieve the silence he’s after for his final scene, and a therapist begins, impossibly, to appear in a troubled patient's room late at night. In these stories of doubt, delusion, and paranoia, no belief, no claim to objectivity, is immune to the distortions of human perception. Here, self-deception is a means of justifying our most inhuman impulses―whether we know it or not.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Weird Fiction, Science Fiction, Anthologies

208 pages, Paperback

First published June 11, 2019

About the author

Brian Evenson is an American academic and writer of both literary fiction and popular fiction, some of the latter being published under B. K. Evenson.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [mental health hiatus] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘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.’

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's nothing more exciting than reading work by an author who's completely singular and unique, an author that almost defies description. Brian Evenson is one of those writers. Anyone who's ever read any work by him knows what I'm talking about. I'm not quite sure how to even catogerize the stories included here, which is the first full story collection I've read by him. They're mostly horrifying, but not quite standard horror, there are some pieces with aliens and spaceships but I wouldn't quite call them science fiction or fantasy. What I love about the stories is that there is very little valuable time spent on going into full detail about the setting. The effect is that the stories have a timeless, otherworldy feel, where I wasn't quite sure if the story took place in the future, the present, on Earth, or even in another dimension. This adds so much to the heavy, oppressive atmosphere in most of these stories.

I was there for days, weeks perhaps, and the things that happened to me were far too terrible, are far too terrible still. There was light and noise, a flutter of wings that were not wings, a man screaming who both was and was not me. The press of other creatures tugging at my extremities, the seepage of one skin through another skin, the loss of most of one foot then the loss of most of the other, a man pounding on the door and begging in a voice not entirely his own to be set free.

Evenson's unique imagination is on full display here as he weaves tales of identity, existensialism, and paranoia that are perfectly bite-sized. Some of my favorite stories here are:

"Wanderlust," about a man who gets the feeling that someone's watching him and goes to great lengths to avoid the ever-present gaze
"A Disappearance," a surprising tale about a man investigating the death of his best friend
"No Matter Which Way She Turned," a moody story about a girl with no face
"The Cardiacs," where a magician's trick fails in a dark and mysterious way
"Line of Sight" and "Room Tone," two stories of filmmakers obsessed with the devil in the details
and the title story, an unexpected, surprising story about a father's dedication to his daughter that takes dark turns.

If you're looking for stories that stray from the normal and will linger in your subconcious long after reading, read Brian Evenson's novels and short stories. And this collection is a perfect place to start.

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?

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brian Evenson seems to have reached a plateau in his short fiction. It is a high plateau, for sure, but I don't know if it's possible for him to climb any higher at this point without expanding his repertoire. This collection is a pretty typical blend of styles for him. I like his absurdist tendencies best, and unfortunately there wasn't a lot of that on display here. Instead there is a lot of paranoia, a lot of characters catching glimpses of the unknown just out of clear sight. There are also more women characters than usual, and a repetitious though not unwelcome filmmaking theme. More familiar were the barbs aimed at psychiatry and a continuing parade of some of the best character names found in contemporary fiction. My one complaint is that some of the endings were kind of weak, which I found disappointing as I've always thought Evenson does a good job with endings. A few favorite stories: 'Born Stillborn', 'Leaking Out', 'Room Tone', 'Shirts and Skins' (an exercise in extreme passivity), 'Wanderlust', and 'Lather of Flies' (winner of best title in the collection). Overall this was probably more like a 3.5 for me, but I rounded up in support of the stronger stories.

[Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Song for the Unravelling of the World is like a fever dream of nihilistic visions. It’s masterfully written, utterly captivating and there isn’t a bad story in the collection. I highly recommend this book, especially if you like your horror bleak and bizarre.

[Lex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Every story here can be summarized as, "There's something unsettling. Maybe it gets slightly more unsettling; maybe it just stays the same level of unsettling. The end."

[Elise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts off well, but soon after, the formula becomes apparent. "Trigger Warnings" is such a whiny boomer screed that it lowered my opinion of the entire collection.

[Brandon Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought it was just phenomenal!! What an amazing collection of cosmic horror. Of course some stories were better than others, but there wasn’t a single dud imo. My favorites were:

The Tower: A post-apocalyptic about survivors holed up in a tower that serves as a beacon for other traveling survivors.

Sisters: 2 sisters celebrate Halloween for the 1st time ever, but not everything is as it seems.

The Hole: A sci-fi-esq story about a researcher being interrogated after finding a member of her team impossibly alive at the bottom of a pit.

Trigger Warnings: a ridiculous string of trigger warnings. Not really sure what the point of it was but it made me laugh 😂

This is one of the best short story collections I’ve ever read. Again, not every story blew me away, but even the ones that didn’t I found to be uniquely disquieting and unnerving. Except for the story Trigger Warnings, I think Evenson was just having some fun with that one and it just made me laugh a bit. Highly recommend!!

[Philip Fracassi · Rating 5 out of 5]

SONG FOR THE UNRAVELING OF THE WORLD is another stunning collection by Evenson, who is easily the modern master of the weird tale. I found this collection to be incredibly charming, with surprising moments of delicious snark and bowls full of unsettling creepiness. These stories take place in worlds we don't see until it's too late. These are harrowing stories that involve very real people, and at times you feel their despair and at other times they horrify you with their actions. A stellar lineup of stories taking place in deep space, on planets not our own, in alternate rippling dimensions and - worst of all - our own backyards. Prepare to be immersed and captured by Evenson's prose and bizarre riffs on what happens when the surreal meets blind, unflinching terror. Highly recommended.

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brian Evenson doesn't exaclty break new ground here, but he knows what he's good at and he does it better than anyone else.

This collection explores Evenson's familiar themes of unknowability and existential alienation in his one again fun, but familiar settings: empty buildings, desolate houses, a skyscraper's ruins, etc. Perhaps my two favorite stories were A DISAPPEARANCE, which explores grief, judgement and appearances and SISTERS, which is just downright freaky. It could've been a straight up Twilight Zone episode. Enjoyed the hell out of this one, but I'm ready for a new Brian Evenson novel.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brian Evenson is the king of creepy fiction and this collection deftly displays his range - from science to speculative fiction and the more subtle paranoia of mental horror genres, every story packs a powerful punch. Eerie and urgent, these stories are drenched in ambiguity and dread. They are hypnotically nightmarish and ruthlessly tease the reader by witholding just the right amount of detail to keep us ravenously craving more without turning us off.

Some of my favorites include "No Matter Which Way We Turned" in which a girl appears to only show the back of her head, no matter which way you turned her; "Song For the Unraveling of the World" where an estranged husband and father kidnaps his young daughter only to lose her again in baffling way; the deliciously post apocalyptic "The Tower" where survivors live in holes and fight off strange scavengers while living under the shadow of a mysterious (you guessed it) tower; "The Hole" and "Lord of the Vats" which focus on aliend horror, both taking place in outer space, and tormenting us with what we don't know, forcing us to fill in the blanks with what we might, and leaving us with more questions than answers; "Wanderlust" plays with the idea of time in a delightful way, and the frightening scenario in "Line of Sight" in which a lead character is replaced by something otherworldy during a film shoot.

Since discovering Evenson through the audio of his novel Immobility, every book of his I read just continues to solidify him as one of my favorite writers. There's simply nothing he can't write!

[Marie-Therese · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This was a bit more uneven than I've come to expect from Brian Evenson, with a surfeit of rather unengaging and surprisingly graceless stories at the beginning of the volume. I'll admit that I was almost ready to give up on the book when I came upon "The Second Door". I immediately remembered this as being an impressive story I'd already read in Looming Low:Volume I and Year's Best Weird Fiction, Vol. 5 and wasn't surprised that I liked it just as much on a third reading. After that, either my mood changed or the stories improved, but I found most good to excellent, with a nice balance of humour, horror, and existential angst. There's even some Lovecraftiana. Well worth reading to the end.

[AJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evenson is very skilled at the difficult art of the short story. In this collection, through unreliable narrators and narratives, and intentionally raising questions and leaving them unanswered, he explores other worlds parallel and unknown to ours, where things are not quite right. Sometimes he shows us directly what it is that is “wrong,” and sometimes he intentionally obscures it, and the reader is left with a vague sense of dread or uneasiness. This technique is particularly powerful in horror, and the short story specifically, where the tendency is to try with each one to grasp as quickly as possible what is going on. I look forward to reading more Evenson in the future.

[Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brian Evenson On his new story collection, writing, recommendations, and inspirations | More2Read

Girl with no face,
therapy, therapists and being born still,
fathers search for daughter missing with hint of her singing there but not there,
reflections on parents and a sister dead,
a strange home and dilemma,
filmmaking by any means necessary,
Hrafndis stragglers and the tower,
a guy with gold suite and face on wrong side of his head,
Man feeling.. someone is watching me,
Crew gone expect one or two in a vessel the Vorag in the universe,
to a man have hard time believing one is his sister,
to name a few, a collection of thought provoking speculative snippets and scenes contained within this collection.
Complexities, oddities, and fates, taken to different realms and worlds, a myriad of characters created with various themes including the wonderfully weird involved, visionary works, enter The Brian Evenson Zone!

Review also @ More2read

[Julio Bernad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mi acercamiento a la obra de Brian Evenson, como a la de tantos otros escritores de género contemporáneos, se lo debo a la impagable labor de traducción y divulgación de Marcheto, dueña del blog Cuentos para Algernon. El año pasado Marcheto tradujo Buenas noches, que descanses, un cuento de terror extraño, que os recomiendo encarecidamente que leáis:

https://cuentosparaalgernon.wordpress...

Evenson, como tantos autores en lengua inglesa actuales, ha abrazado ese subgénero terrorífico que Ligotti llamaba "lo extraño", una forma particular de entender el terror que combina lo fantástico y lo surrealista, donde el elemento inexplicable irrumpe en la realidad consuetudinaria sin que el personaje, ni el lector, llegue a saber por qué ha ocurrido lo que ha ocurrido, ni si quiera cuál es la naturaleza del fenómeno natural. Como explicamos en el cuarto programa de Silba y Acudiremos dedicado a este subgénero, en el relato extraño empiezas como acabas: sin saber nada.

Una canción para deshacer el mundo, no obstante, es una antología mucho más ecléctica, un surtido variado de piezas terroríficas que van desde la ciencia ficción al terror cotidiano, pasando por la sátira surrealista y el microrrelato, que reflejan tanto la versatilidad del autor como sus obsesiones y manías. Evenson nos hace dudar de la realidad jugando con la definición de identidad. Muchos de sus personajes son incapaces de aprehender la realidad de manera fiable, como si caminaran en un limbo entre la vigilia y la pesadilla, otros, en cambio, se topan con un fenómeno u objeto que les permite entrever que hay tras el velo de lo real. En cambio, en las historias de ciencia ficción, la exploración de la identidad se realiza de forma más materialista, buscando el recipiente de la conciencia; qué somos nosotros, si es que somos algo: un conjunto de patrones eléctricos que dan lugar a la conciencia, nuestros recuerdos y experiencias, fácilmente replicables por un ordenador lo suficientemente avanzado, o un accidente evolutivo.

Este juego de identidades frágiles se manifiesta en el gusto que tiene por la suplantación, por la impostura. En varios relatos la piel no es más que un continente de quita y pon, tanto los humanos como otros seres de naturaleza más ambigua. Es por ello que no debemos extrañarnos de encontrar seres de aspecto humanos con comportamientos tan ajenos: el horror campa a nuestro alrededor y es indistinguible de la realidad. En este aspecto, se perciben, salvando las distancias, ecos paranoides de Philip K. Dick.

Lo que más agradezco de esta selección es que demuestra que Evenson no ha sido infectado por el virus Ligotti, al que ya pensaba ningún anglosajón era del todo inmune. No me malinterpretéis, Evenson ligottea como cualquier hijo de vecino, no hay más que leer el título de la antología, pero al menos no es víctima de esos excesos, o no siempre. De hecho, los peores relatos lo son, en parte, por esa obsesión de hacer suyo un estilo tan diferente, personal e imposible de imitar. Especialmente cuando la traducción no está a la altura de las pretensiones literarias del autor (algo que podéis comprobar si habéis leido el relato traducido por Marcheto). Ya lo he dicho muchas veces antes: Ligotti se ha convertido en el Lovecraft de nuestro tiempo en cuanto a terror se refiere, y ambos comparten un estilo aparentemente facil de imitar, cuando lo que, en realidad, es fácilmente parodiable.

Los relatos contenidos en esta antología son los siguientes:

No importa el ángulo desde el que la mires (***): una secta diseña a una mujer sin rostro. Da igual desde donde se la mire, siempre ofrece la espalda a su interlocutor.

Nacido mortinato (***): un hombre acude a un psicólogo por las mañanas. Sin embargo, por la noche, en su casa, recibe aparentemente la visita de su terapeuta, que le realiza un estudio mucho más exhaustivo.

Filtración (***): un vagabundo pernocta en una casa abandonada. Aterido por el frío, enciende la chimenea y descansa sus huesos en una butaca cercana, durmiéndose al poco. Al despertar a causa de una pesadilla, descubre a su lado a un hombre con la piel estirada o flácida en los sitios equivocados.

Una canción para deshacer el mundo (***): un hombre se percata de que su hija de cinco años ha desaparecido de la casa. Alarmado, pregunta a los vecinos si han visto a su hija. Lo lógico sería llamar a la policía, pero eso pondría en peligro su plan.

La segunda puerta (***): dos hermanos huérfanos viven aislados en una suerte bunker con dos puertas, por una se accede al exterior, otra, según la hermana explica a su hermano, no debe ser abierta bajo ningún concepto. Un día, la hermana desarrolla un tipo de afasia que hace que de su boca salgan ruidos metálicos y que le impide escribir palabras inteligibles.

Hermanas (****): una familia nómada con capacidad para cambiar de cuerpos se asientan en una nueva ciudad. Una de las hijas, Millie, quiere empaparse de las festividades locales y celebrar Halloween. Para ello, necesitará hacerse con una nueva piel artificial.

Ruido ambiente (****): un cineasta y su equipo alquilan una casa para rodar su película. Sin embargo, el nuevo inquilino está deseando ocuparla, por lo que apresuran tanto el rodaje que no graban el ruido ambiente de una de las escenas clave. Esta ausencia obsesiona al director, que hará lo imposible por conseguir la película perfecta.

Camisas y pieles (****): una primera cita en una exposición de arte sella el destino del protagonista, que siente como su nueva pareja quiere diseñar y controlar cada aspecto de su vida.

La torre (****): en un mundo postapocalíptico, un grupo de supervivientes malvive junto a los restos de un rascacielos, protegidos dentro de unos agujeros de unos seres carnívoros llamados Rezagados. Un día, uno de los supervivientes es atrapado en su agujero por uno de estas criaturas, bajo la atenta y cobarde mirada del resto. Sin embargo, el superviviente no ha muerto, y una vez abandona el agujero comprueban los extraños cambios que ha sufrido.

El agujero (***): en un planeta desconocido, un miembro de la tripulación se ha extraviado, por lo que el resto ha salido en su búsqueda. El protagonista, durante la batida, cae en un agujero, el mismo en el que ha caído su compañero, que, aunque no sobrevivió a la caída, sigue conservando la capacidad de hablar.

Una desaparición (****): la mujer del mejor amigo del protagonista ha desaparecido. La última vez que se la vio con vida estaba en la playa, nadando junto a su marido. Pese a que las autoridades no tienen pruebas para acusarlo de asesinato, todos creen que el marido es el culpable. Todos, menos el protagonista, que sabe que su amigo es inocente... pero no por creer en su inocencia.

Los infartos (*): un truco de magia más sangriento de lo normal.

La mancha: conjunciones (**): a bordo de una nave espacial, el visor del protagonista tiene una molesta mancha que no le deja ver bien. Al preguntar el ordenador de a bordo qué esta viendo, éste no es capaz de darle una respuesta esclarecedora.

Un mundo resplandeciente (**): la protagonista, de fiesta en un bar con una amiga, le dice a ésta que hay un hombre en traje dorado que no para de mirarlas. Sin embargo, la amiga no es capaz de verlo.

Espíritu viajero (**): el protagonista, sentado en su cubículo, siente cómo algo o alguien le observa, sensación que va acompañándole a cualquier lugar que vaya. Incapaz de soportar este escrutinio, abandona su trabajo, su mujer y su vida y se lanza a errar por todo el pais.

El amo de los tanques (****): en una nave espacial, un tripulante sale de estasis debido a una anomalía en la nave. Según las grabaciones, un objeto sideral ha golpeado el casco y ha comprometido el resto de cápsulas criogénicas, por que toda la tripulación ha muerto mientras dormía. Bueno, no toda: una de las tripulantes pudo ver como el objeto impactaba, y la visión la achicharró por completo. El protagonista, con la ayuda de dos simulaciones de dos de sus compañeros muertos, deberá reconstruir los patrones cerebrales de la tripulante para saber qué ocurrió.

Gafas (****): durante un viaje en tren hacía un mitin político, a la protagonista se le rompen las gafas, por lo que tiene que acudir a una óptica para comprar otro par. El dueño de la tienda, un hombre cuando menos peculiar, le puede ofrecer unas lentes biofocales, que no bifocales. Al darle las gafas también le da una advertencia: una vez se las ponga podrá ver y ser vista.

Menno (***): un hombre cambia de apartamento regularmente porque algo, o alguien, hace desaparecer sus cosas. No sabe quién es el culpable de este fenómeno, pero sospecha de uno de sus nuevos vecinos, Menno.

Línea de visión (***): al terminar el rodaje, el director no puede quitarse una espinita de encima: algo raro hay en la grabación. Examinando el metraje descubre que hay cierta inclinación en algunos planos, y para comprobarlo llama de madrugada al cámara que, al parecer, esperaba su llamada porque él también había notado algo extraño.

Advertencia de contenido sensible (***): un chiste que nos lanza Evenson a la cara: una larga recopilación de temas sensibles que pueden herir sensibilidades que, conforme avanza, va haciéndose más y más delirante.

Espíritu afín (***): un hombre ha construido un robot a imagen y semejanza de su hija para protegerla, que pasa a ser su hermana. Un día, la niña real se lanza por la ventana, y el robot la acompaña.

La espuma de las moscas (***): un estudiante de cine, admirador de la obra de un director bastante desconocido, conoce en un bar a un hombre que dice haber participado como extra en varias de sus películas, incluida en una que no aparece en ningún listado oficial. El estudiante acudirá a entrevistarse con el director en persona para saber de esta singular cinta.

[Shane Hawk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably my favorite literary horror collection to date.
Evenson’s ideas and prose are to be envied. I’ve loved everything I’ve read by him and they’ve ranged from horror to sci-fi to crime noir. This collection was published 2018, so like a band or artist, I anticipate some new release of writing now that we are halfway through 2020 😋

Standout stories for me were:
No Matter Which Way We Turned
Sisters
Room Tone
The Tower
Lord of the Vats
Line of Sight
Trigger Warnings (lmao, what a riot)
Kindred Spirit

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with most short story collections, these varied quite a bit in quality, and should probably have been spaced out further than I did - after awhile a sameness set in and they weren't quite as surprising as initially thought. It is appropriate that the author has won awards named after O. Henry and Shirley Jackson, as both seem to have been models for these. Fun to read during Halloween though, as most have a spooky quality - several would make great 'Twilight Zone' episodes.

[Leo Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely cool nightmares!

[Bandit · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s always exciting when our library acquires something new and scary for their digital catalog and obviously I just had to check it out if only to show support for their choices. And then I went to amazon for the page count (never begin a book without it) and noticed a list of praise for this collection, it went on and on and on. I mean, the best of words, the highest of accolades from the most respectable sources/authors/etc. Can a book possibly live up to such praises? Seemed impossible and yet…this one did. It really freaking did. It’s the strangest and darkest of collections that straddles genres and tones and moods and yet somehow it just sings, which makes it most appropriately titled for one thing. There’s something about the quality of writing, the breadth of imagination that draws you in immediately, but then it grabs and doesn’t let go, not for a minute. In fact, this was pretty much a one sitting read for me, longish but not impossible to do, and I’m not sure if that’s the best way to go with this book or it’s more suitable for dipping in and out, except that it’s really difficult to put down, because you can’t wait to find out what the author comes up with next. Genre wise it goes from horrific to science fiction, from thriller to drama, sometimes within the same story. The narrative employs both natural and supernatural elements seamlessly. It’s twists and turns and gets to you, it’s demented, dark and strange. Essentially, Evenson writes nightmares. Or at least nightmares as I understand them. Strikingly effective, profoundly disturbing scenarios that make sleep such a dangerous proposition. There are some themes he revisits time and again, the skins, the kind that might crawl away from their owners. The movie making industry…personally my favorites. Wherein the science fiction ones might have been my least favorite. But overall, every story here works to its optimal terrifying effect. Even someone who reads a lot of genre, a seasoned fan, would be delighted and disturbed by this collection. Evenson is obviously an immensely talented author and an expert archaeologist of the most caliginous corners of the mind and soul. Fans of dark psychological fiction…this is the one. Recommended.

[Shane Douglas Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full review on Ink Heist if you're so inclined, but seriously. No words are adequate to describe or praise the eloquence and beauty of Brian Evenson's wonderful narratives. Only a read of the book will give you an inkling of the magic it contains. I can't recommend it enough. Buy it. Read it. You will love it.

[Isobel Faull · Rating 2 out of 5]

Before reading this, I was ready to love it if only because Evenson's writing seemed right up my ally (I'm a big fan of Kafka and Lynch). And for the first few stories, I was intrigued but not blown away. Each story is built like a house of riddles, but I found that as I went on, a formula was apparent.

So many stories ended just as I thought it was becoming interesting, just as we were beginning to get a glimpse into the character. Evenson's writing feels like a blessing and a curse at times; precise and elegant, but sometimes to the point where it feels as if there is no life to it. This works for some—there are many interpretations you can take away from his stories, but I also found many stories were so barebones I didn't even care. There were some I genuinely really liked/loved though, such as the title story and Wanderlust. Many also went over the same themes of paranoia, doubt and the self with marginal differences (for example Glasses and Line of Sight deal significantly with perspective). Reading these stories together in a collection blended them all into a soup where I could barely differentiate between main characters.

My least favourite story had to be Shirts and Skins, where a man is trapped in a relationship. Evenson's depiction of the relationship is so simplified that it fails to acknowledge the very real reasons why people might stay in bad relationships. I know this is a short story and I may be too close to the subject matter but I felt like its simplicity was borderline ignorant. I do know though, that many may find different interpretations entirely—which is ok, I see what Evenson is going for. I think I'd prefer to see Evenson in long-form where characters can be fully fleshed out. I'm more into long-form than short-form anyway, so this may be my issue.

There was also the story Trigger Warning which was...okay I guess? It just seemed like a misunderstanding of what trigger warnings actually are, as if my boomer uncle turned English teacher decided to have a mini-rant at the very end.

[Heidi Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brian Evenson's stories are almost always excellent, and this collection is no different. More unsettling than terrifying, most of these tales turn on the uncanny, particularly by doubling ("The Second Door"; "Wanderlust"; "Kindred Spirit"), but also on the sense of dislocation and dread found in unreliable perception and sensory anomalies ("Smear"; "Glasses"; "Line of Sight"). Some do both, because Evenson is just that good.

I would be remiss if I didn't also note that the short, sharp, "Trigger Warnings" made me laugh out loud. Several times. Inappropriately. It's a jewel.

5 stars; a weird horror master at the top of his game. Best of 2019.

[Darwin8u · Rating 5 out of 5]

No Matter Which Way We Turned - ★★★★
Born Stillborn -★★★★★
Leaking Out -★★★★
Song for the Unraveling of the World - ★★★★★
The Second Door - ★★★★
Sisters - ★★★★
Room Tone - ★★★★★
Shirts and Skins -★★★★
The Tower - ★★★★★
The Hole - ★★★★
A Disappearance - ★★★★★
The Cardiacs - ★★★★
Smear - ★★★★★
The Glistening World - ★★★★
Wanderlust - ★★★★★
Lord of the Vats - ★★★★★
Glasses - ★★★★★
Menno - ★★★★
Line of Sight - ★★★★★
Trigger Warnings -★★★
Kindred Spirit - ★★★
Lather of Flies - ★★★★★

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first experience reading Evenson, and these are fantastic stories. Pushing the boundaries between good old fashioned horror and something closer to Weird Fiction, the stories collected here are visceral and raw, yet the minimalist style only adds to the dread and forboding. I'll definitely be checking out more of his books after this one.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

2020: Another wild ride from the master of weird short fiction. I was struck by the way similar themes are played out in different stories. For instance there are a number of stories featuring dual consciousness, and the way that awareness shifts from fear to acceptance was terrifying. Also, a lot of the stories deal with uncertainty and unreliable narrators who embrace fiction as fact and turn it into a world view that proves to be destructive. In Evenson's stories, madness is a short commute from a flicker, a smear, bad vibes. Hard to pick out a favorite as I liked so many of them but "Lord of the Vats" may be the most bonkers.

2024: This should be called Songs for the Unraveling of the Mind. Or the reader. Or this reader. I listened to these stories in the car and after two or three or four or five I realized I’d read these stories before. The strange thing was I couldn’t remember how any of them ended. A story would start. “This sounds familiar…” I’d think, and then I’d drive here and there, trying to puzzle out the ending only to discover that I couldn’t. My mind was a blank. In Evenson’ stories, blankness is a stand-in for unreliability of the senses, of memory, of reality. Let me give you an example, show you what I mean. "Leaking Out" is about a man who breaks into a house at night and can’t find his way out. It’s a very typical scenario for Evenson. Alone in a strange place where lostness is not unexpected, but Evenson’s genius is there are many ways to be lost, many many ways, and the worst thing about it is the doubt that goes along with it. (I think it would be a terrible thing to go on a hike and get lost in the woods with Brian Evenson.) But this particular story has an ending that is vivid. Unforgettable even. But it came as a surprise to me. Again. The good news is apparently I can keep reading and rereading Evenson until the end of time because I’m not going to remember a fucking thing.

[Paul (Life In The Slow Lane) · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are 22 short stories in this book. It seems to me, they were way too abstract and the author forgot to write the ending, for all of them. When I got to the 17th story, our neighbour's dog paid us a visit and started chewing on the book; I let him.

[David Agranoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe this is not the most appropriate time to write an elegy for a writer but hear me out. I know we have lots and lots of years left of Brian Evenson stories but last week we lost Dennis Etchison. If you are not familiar with Dennis he was a writer who despite a few novels, screenplays, and radio dramas was an absolute master of short horror fiction. As a short story writer few reached the level of balancing creepy, delusional and paranoid scares that Dennis Etchison did with 10 or so pages. All with a level of literary prose that is equal to the strength of writers in any genre.

This collection like Evenson’s last "A Collapse of Horses" gives me that same feeling that Dennis did. There is rare company at this level of quality. Song for the Unraveling of the World is a truly and deeply amazing collection of horror that has every right to be shelved in the same section of the bookstore as Clive Barker and David Foster Wallace, Ursula Leguin and Louise Erdrich. He is that freaking good.

This book features just over a dozen short stories, there are certainly a few that stand out as stronger than others but there are no stinkers in the bunch. Not every collection can boast like that. If forced to explain what makes this collection different from his Collapse of Horses (which has my favorite Evenson story "Any Corpse")it is the the surreal nature of the stories. Evenson is always weird but in this collection he is using words to warp reality on almost every page. Sometimes it is subtle, other times it is jaw dropping, but always done with beautiful razor sharp prose.

My favorite stories in this collection play with themes of false skin and go closer to more straight forward sci-fi by going into space. The Story "Smear" is a fantastic sci-fi horror story that has one of the most subtle yet scary monsters I can recall. The monster was just a feeling, fleeting something just beyond sight, but goddamn did it creep me out. "The Lord of Vats" might be my absolute favorite this super PKD style sci-fi story is one of the coolest and creepy takes on hypersleep I have ever read. In the short page count this story explores what is reality?, what is human? All that and it has a great reversal.

On the straight horror side I loved "Sisters", "The Tower", the title story and the entry from the Lost Films Anthology "Lather of Flies." Sisters is a great Halloween story but don't mistake that for a traditional horror story. I struggle with even trying to describe that one. The Tower is a cool post apocalyptic story, and the title story has some of the most unsettling moments of character paranoia and delusion in a book filled with that feeling.

Evenson has quickly become one of my favorite working authors, and his work is a must read, I mean all of it. I read a few of these before they were collected. There is something about reading Evenson stories collected. I hang on every word, each story is strong. If you are not reading Evenson you are missing one of the best weird fiction voices.

Thank you Coffee House Press for giving me an arc, keep your eyes peeled for Brian Returning to the Dickheads Podcast, in the mean time you can look up the interview we did with him about his fantastic novella The Warren.

[Jerry Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

TL;DR A solid collection of horror short stories. Some weren't so good, but there are a lot of favorites in here. I recommend.

This book was recommended to me by my high school English teacher. He was cooler and more "hip" than I ever was, and we both knew it. He saw that I enjoyed Thomas Ligotti and recommended me Brian Evenson. And oh boy I'm glad he did. This is a short story collection, so I can't do a blurb on the plot, but there were common themes throughout. The dissolution of reliable perception is prevalent throughout most of these stories, and many times skin was an important aspect. They are surreal and abstract, and often play on the mystery and fear of the unknown to deliver their spooky punch. A few of these, including some of my favorites, are post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror, and they are done masterfully. The prose is less flowery and complex than Ligotti, but that's not a bad thing - they are still excellently written, and fun to read.

There are a lot of great stories in here (and some funny ones), but my favorites were Born Stillborn, The Second Door, The Tower, The Hole, Lather of Flies, Line of Sight, and Glasses - and I may have missed a few. Some of these stories didn't quite do it for me (others like them, but I personally don't), so I can't give it 5 stars, but I think this is an awesome collection of horror stories. If you are a fan of horror, give it a read.

[Lloyd Grady · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an entertaining collection of strange and spooky stories. Some of these short stories seem a bit formulaic, and remind me of old television shows like 'The Twilight Zone' or 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'. Many stories involve a character encountering something anomalous, spiraling into psychosis, or attempting to survive in a hazardous setting.
My favorite story was 'Wanderlust', which was more mystical and surreal than the others. My least favorite story was 'Lord of the Vats', which was boring and confusing. A few of the stories such as 'The Second Door' and 'Menno' were very intriguing, however they seemed to be missing a comprehensive conclusion. I used my imagination to suppose at what was behind the second door. And what happened to Menno, or who Menno actually was, remained a mystery.
Many of these short narratives are unsettling, a couple are humorous, and all of them are strange.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A title that aptly describes the present state of reality, no?

It's a collection of short stories, some of which are filler and some of which are absolute gems. On the whole, I’m impressed. The atmosphere generated by these stories reminds me irresistably of all of my dreams: a confusing, nonsensical, ominous, rather menacing patchwork of threads of reality. Think Twilight Zone, think Black Mirror.

In one of the short stories, someone is telling a story and answers the question “Why?” with “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.”

That pretty well explains these stories. You’re given no context for what’s going on or what it means - you are simply dropped into the story in media res and must train yourself not to ask to many “whys” or you’ll drive yourself insane with dissatisfaction.

I loved the dedication at the beginning (presumably to his son and wife) - pure poetry:

“For Max,
but later
(only once you’re as
tall as your lemon tree,
in stockinged feet)

&

For Kristen
stockinged or shod or barefoot
Then and Now and Always”

[Sean McGowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

What's scarier, the ways we delude ourselves to the point of insanity and paranoia, or a big scary alien monster from another dimension? Trick question dipshit you don't have to decide because this book has both.

Evenson's short stories, specifically his sci-fi, reminded me of Saunders'. There's that same love for strange details, names, made-up jargon—and while both explore humanity at its darkest, I feel like Saunders is more optimistic than Evenson.

Favorite stories: Glasses, Shirts & Skins, Room Tone (Room Tone is so fucking good)

I also have to mention the story 'Trigger Warning', a completely unreadable satirical piece that lambasts the supposed pandemic of PC culture. The irony here is that someone like Evenson, an author so talented at eliciting terror and disgust and shock with just a few well placed words, dismisses trigger warnings because, hey, it's "just fiction". None of it's real! It's beyond me how someone so skilled at wielding words couldn't understand how they could to take readers back to horrible places they might never want to revisit.