Mapping the Interior

This is my third reading of Stephen Graham Jones, and I've yet to warm to his writing style.

There's this magic that SGJ always does, where you think one thing is going on but it's been another the entire time, and it's obvious but not, and clever but not too clever. Basically, it's got the type of arcs and changes some authors could never think up, or if they did they'd write the book around that and make it all too obvious and wrong, but SGJ writes it how he does because it's the only way he could think about it, maybe, so it's not even treated like that big of a surprise in the world. Which I”m being vague about. Might as well say and mark for spoilers: how the dad's been sucking the life out of the brother and not giving him life – that's such a perfect thing. It fits so well thematically that it should have been obvious from the start, and maybe it wasn't a surprise for some: but yeah, it was that SGJ moment of reversal where it was obvious but not and yet clever but not too clever. The sort of plot arc that SGJ does with such ease that makes me coming back to everything he puts out.

While it's not my favorite short sci fi novel about father/son grief (LONG TRIAL by SGJ winning the ticket there), it's still a wonderful book.

This was a hauntingly beautiful story about intergenerational trauma and how cyclical neglect can be. The horror elements weren't really “horrifying” in the traditional sense, but the overall mood of the story is tense and dreary. I had to take a deep breath at the end because I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath during the final section.