Anoka by Shane Hawk

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Link to book

Genre: Body Horror, Folk Horror, Monster, Myth and Folklore, Occult, Werewolf

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Biracial Cheyenne author, Dakota characters, non-binary character

Takes Place in: Anoka Minnesota, USA

Content Warnings: Alcohol Abuse, Cannibalism, Child Death, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Gore, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Sexual Abuse, Slurs, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Welcome to Anoka, Minnesota, a small city just outside of the Twin Cities dubbed "The Halloween Capital of the World" since 1937. Here before you lie several tales involving bone collectors, pagan witches, werewolves, skeletal bison, and cloned children. It is up to you to decipher between fact and fiction as the author has woven historical facts into his narratives. With his debut horror collection, Cheyenne & Arapaho author Shane Hawk explores themes of family, grief, loneliness, and identity through the lens of indigenous life.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Apparently Anoka, Minnesota is the "Halloween Capital of the World" because they've been having giant Halloween parades since 1920. Out of civic pride, I want to argue that Salem is the Halloween Capital and our town is better because we have real witches and Salem Horror Fest and the oldest candy company in America. On the other hand, I would also like tourists to stop blocking the traffic, drunkenly climbing on the witch statue, and crowding my favorite restaurants every October (that's my job), so maybe it would be better if they all headed to Anoka instead. I don't think anyone will want to go anywhere near the Minnesota city after reading Shane Hawk's Indigenous horror anthology of the same name, though. The stories in Anoka are loosely tied together by their location in an alternative version of the town where dark magic and monsters lurk. An evil tome known simply as "the book" and strange green swirls also make multiple appearances throughout the anthology. 

I may or may not have actually done this

Hawk gives a different and unique voice to each of his characters so every story feels different from the others. His writing reminded me of a talented artist who can draw in multiple styles and shift easily from realism to the simple lines of a cartoon. My favorite thing about his book is how so many of the stories felt like pre-comics code horror anthology comics like Eerie, Black Cat, and The Haunt of Fear or modern-day creepypastas with terrifying twists. Some stories were fun and weird, others tragic reflections of human nature. But all of them were creepy, the kind of creepy that makes you aware of how many noises an old house makes at night or has you shouting out loud at the characters not to go into the room where the monster is waiting. 

American Indians tragically have the highest infant mortality rate in the U.S. (again due to trauma, poverty and a lack of adequate healthcare), so much of Hawk's anthology touches on themes of child death and the trauma that goes with such a great loss. In two stories, Orange and Wounded, the death of a child in the past moves the main characters to do something terrible. Soilborne is a metaphor for the loss of the child-parent connection and how devastating that can be. In Imitate, the protagonist has to rush to save his son, Tate, from an unknown horror that's taken his form. There's no way of knowing if Tate is even still alive, and the whole story is exceedingly stressful to read. Honestly, Imitate would have worked just fine as microfiction and Hawk could have easily ended it after the first page or so. But instead, he decides to pile on even more terror by turning it into a suspenseful short story where we're forced to watch a father slowly lose his mind. It's definitely one of the anthology's stronger and spookier tales. 

My absolute favorite story in the collection is Dead America about a writer named Chaska whose family is followed by death. This is sadly not uncommon for Native families as generational trauma, poverty, and a lack of adequate healthcare has lead to poor health and high death rates from heart disease, diabetes, and suicide. The story gets its name from Chaska's hobo nickel which depicts the skull of a dead Indian chief in full headdress on one side and Columbus' three ships on the other. "When betting a coin offers someone a fifty-fifty chance of winning and losing. The nickel was a metaphor for the predicament of Indian existence: fucked no matter which side the coin landed on" the author explains. He's about to find out how right he is when Asibikaashi the Spider Woman decides to make the Dakota author suffer for his sins. 

 This story is SCARY. All of my notes for Dead America consist of "nope, nope, nopeity-nope nope, fuck this, nope." I'm not someone who's usually bothered by spiders under normal circumstances. I think they're kind of cute and I love that they eat any bugs that get into the house, but Chaska's punishment left me terrified of arachnids. If you have any form of arachnophobia, I can guarantee you'll be in for some nasty nightmares and might want to skip this story entirely. But if you're feeling brave, it's one of the strongest stories in the collection and worth checking out. The story also touches on themes of profiting off the personal stories of others, very similar to how Ward Churchill, Asa Earl Carter, Mary Summer Rain and others pretended to be Native for fame and money.

It's important to note that in Ojibwe stories Asibikaashi, aka Grandmother Spider, is a benevolent deity and helper of humanity whose spiderweb charms, popularly known as "Dream Catchers", were woven by women as a form of protection for infants. I couldn't find any references to her punishing the wicked (of course I couldn't find many references to her at all that weren't written by White new agers). 

Hawk's final story, Transformation, is about a non-binary werewolf who hunts for her community and runs into trouble at Anoka's annual Halloween parade. Having a trans werewolf feels perfect because werewolves are the ideal metaphor for someone with a fluid identity. Sometimes you're a wolf, others a human, and occasionally you're something in between, but you're always a werewolf regardless of what form you take that day. Just because I'm femme one day, it doesn't negate the fact that I'm non-binary; I'm still an enby when I'm feeling more trans-masculine. Like the story title, werewolves can also represent transition. The wolf can be seen as the true self, hidden under a dull human skin that's forced to conform to society's rigid standards. Becoming the wolves gives you the opportunity to experience freedom. If that transformation is unwanted, it can be compared to a menstrual cycle that causes dysphoria each month or unwanted body hair. "Jenny" a transwoman who identifies with werewolves is quoted on the queer horror blog, Gender Terror: "The titanic proportion of my body and the hair that I continually fight back terrify me, and makes me the target of many suspicious onlookers. And just like werewolves, I have no control over what my body does. Feeling like a prisoner to how your body changes is a special torment I think a lot of transgender people share with werewolves." So is it any wonder writers like Hal Schrieve, Allison Moon, Suzanne Walker,  Ashlynn Barker, and numerous self-published erotic authors like Noah Harris have all explored the idea of a trans werewolf? Heck "were-woman" is slang for someone who "transforms" into a woman at night (though this terminology can be problematic). Hawk's non-binary werewolf character seemed so cool I was disappointed that their story wasn't longer. There was so much going on in Transformation it felt like it would've worked much better as a novella rather than a short story. Honestly, I'd read a full novel about the nostalgic werewolf, Halloween parades, and Wendigo. That's my one major complaint about Anoka: it's too short! The concept was so cool I was disappointed we didn't get to explore more of Hawk's alternate universe. I wanted to learn more about The Book and the creepy town filled with dark magic and monsters. 

Transwolves eat TERFs for breakfast

What impressed me the most about the story collection is how Hawk was able to handle the subjects of child loss, sexual assault, substance abuse and missing and murdered Indigenous women, especially in his story Wounded, in a way that felt respectful rather than exploitative. Anoka is a fun, frightening ride that draws attention to many of the issues plaguing American Indians today, and I hope we'll get to hear even more stories from the spooky little town in Hawk's future books.

Cirque Berserk by Jessica Guess

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Unnerving Magazine

Genre: Killer/Slasher, Myth and Folklore, Occult, Demons

Audience: Y/A

Diversity: Black main character and author, Native Oglala Lakota main character, character with syndactyly

Takes Place in: Florida, USA

Content Warnings: Abelism, Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Child Abuse, Death, Forced Captivity, Gore, Kidnapping, Physical Abuse, Racism, Sexual Abuse (Voyeurism), Slurs, Slut-Shaming, Torture, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

The summer of 1989 brought terror to the town of Shadows Creek, Florida in the form of a massacre at the local carnival, Cirque Berserk. One fateful night, a group of teens killed a dozen people then disappeared into thin air. No one knows why they did it, where they went, or even how many of them there were, but legend has it they still roam the abandoned carnival, looking for blood to spill. Thirty years later, best friends, Sam and Rochelle, are in the midst of a boring senior trip when they learn about the infamous Cirque Berserk. Seeking one last adventure, they and their friends journey to the nearby Shadows Creek to see if the urban legends about Cirque Berserk are true. But waiting for them beyond the carnival gates is a night of brutality, bloodshed, and betrayal. Will they make they it out alive, or will the carnival’s past demons extinguish their futures?

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

I received this product at a discount in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Put on your sequins and neon spandex, grab a New Coke, and turn up that Whitney Houston cassette because it's time to take a look at Jessica Guess's tribute to eighties' slashers, Cirque Berserk! Guess's new horror novella is the perfect ode to trashy, B-horror movies of the yuppie decade à la The Funhouse, Evilspeak, and Prom Night. Praised by one of my favorite horror authors, Stephen Graham Jones, Cirque Berserk hits most of the squares on the "teen scream" Bingo card, but still feels fresh and original. Guess has fun playing with the classic slasher clichés while subverting more problematic tropes like the "black best friend" and the "nice guy" being rewarded with a hot girl. She fills her story with plenty of self-aware humor and the kind of affectionate mocking that can only come from a true horror fan, which balances well with the more serious scenes of racism, sexism, and abuse. The result is a fun, nostalgic, carnival ride with a deeply emotional narrative hidden just beneath all the glitter, gore, and a bad-ass Black protagonist.

The eighties have made a come back in horror recently with popular TV shows (Stranger Things, American Horror Story: 1984), movies (the It reboot, The Final Girls), and novels (Grady Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism) all drawing inspiration from the decade that gave rise to the slasher film, and it's no wonder why. Not only do they have the nostalgia factor going for them as Gen Xers have their midlife crises, but they've got a ton of amazing source material to work from. Eighties audiences were blessed with a plethora of classic horror movies: grotesque monsters (The Thing, Aliens, Scanners, American Werewolf in London), final girls who fought back, (Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Hell Raiser, Aliens), self-aware humor (Elvira, Monster Squad, Fright Night) cool, sexy vampires (Lost Boys, Near Dark, The Hunger) and horror franchises (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, The Evil Dead) graced the silver screen. Hell, even the remakes were good. Both The Fly and The Thing arguably surpassed their originals.

But what was it about the decade of greed that inspired so many amazing films? To understand eighties horror, you need to understand that the 1980's were an age of excess, greed, rapid technological advancement, and reactionary conservatism. As late writer/director Stuart Gordan explained in the Shudder documentary In Search of Darkness: A Journey Into Iconic 80's Horror, "horror thrives when there's a repressive government" and the Reagan years certainly qualified. Additionally, public uncertainty and fear lead to the genre's rise in popularity, just as it did during the Great Depression resulting in Universal's famous Golden Age monsters. Meanwhile, advancements in technology and the increased affordability of personal computers led to some groundbreaking special effects and makeup (The Thing, Scanners, The Fly, American Werewolf in London). This decade was the perfect balance of repression and paranoia for horror films to flourish.

The rise of the "New Right" in the late seventies and eighties brought with it a push to return to "traditional American values" (i.e. being sexist, racist, homophobic, and slut-shaming with impunity). Everywhere you looked, the crack cocaine epidemic was sweeping the nation, AIDS was desolating the population, hardcore porn was easily accessible on video, the rich were getting greedier and richer, and divorce rates had peaked. With more women entering the workforce and an increasing number of newly-single kids were suddenly being left at home unsupervised. The public might have been content with leaving their kids at home, but a generation of 'suddenly being left unsupervised for long periods of time' were exposed to a plethora of violence and sex in media. Concern for the latchkey generation was only made worse by the abduction and murder of six-year-old Adam Walsh. The tragic case "created a nation of petrified kids and paranoid parents" who saw danger in every stranger they encountered. The media-fueled mass hysteria eventually led to a rash of Satanic panic.

It was enough to make any God-fearing White conservative clutch their pearls! Rather than blame Reagan for taking away childcare funding and completely botching the response to drugs and AIDS, or recognize that the risk strangers pose to children is minimal at best a vocal group of conservatives decided it was the loss of a nuclear family, declining morals, and demonic media that had left everything such a mess. Even if you didn't buy into the whole "little Timmy will get murdered by Satanists because his mommy had to rejoin the workforce" school of thought, it was hard to deny the world was pretty scary, what with global warming, Jeffrey Dahmer, the cold war, and deadly invisible illnesses. Why couldn't we go back to the way they were in the fifties when bad things only happened to minorities and women weren't constantly going on about equal rights? Back before all teens were watching heavy metal videos on MTV, popping third generation birth control pills, and playing Super Mario Bros on their NES (or whatever they were into back then. Doing whippets maybe? I dunno, I was like 4 at the time). Cue a wave of 1950's nostalgia and horror films that capitalized on the public's fear for the safety of unsupervised kids.

Most slashers followed a basic formula. A group of unsupervised teenagers with poor decision making skills all did "Bad Things TM" until an evil man would show up and kill everyone but the clever, resourceful, virginal hero because they were too pure to be defeated by evil. The story was simple, yet effective — at least in its ability to terrify audiences. I doubt anyone waited for their wedding night because they were afraid Jason would show up for a murderous version of coïtus interruptus. Ironically the conservative adults whose fear and values inspired the horror Renaissance were also its main detractors. Probably because filmmakers were interested in making money, not PSAs about morality, and tits and blood sell. The so-called golden age of slashers began in 1978 with Halloween and ended in 1984 with A Nightmare on Elm Street. Unfortunately sequelitis and low budget direct-to-video horror flicks marked the end of the era, but thankfully schlock could be just as entertaining in all it's goofy, cheesy glory. When 80's horror is good, it's really good, but when it's bad it's amazing. And it's these B-movie slashers that make Cirque Berserk such a fun read. Guess understands that while The Shining may be the Michelin star-winning gourmet meal of eighties horror and the franchise slasher films are the family restaurants with mass appeal, movies like Basket Case and Slumber Party Massacre 2 are greasy fast-food burgers you cram in your maw at 3 A.M. in the CVS parking lot. Yes, they're terrible for you, and yes you regret it the next day when you wake up with a hangover and smell like dumpster fries, but god damn if those weren't some delicious fucking burgers. Cirque Berserk is what happens when you have a talented chef prepare those greasy, salty, fast-food burgers. It's fast, fun, and you won't be able to put it down until you've devoured the whole thing.

Guess cleverly subverts the standard slasher story line while still paying homage to many of its elements. There's a cast of stereotypical teens whose bad judgement lands them in an abandoned amusement park with a masked killer despite the warnings from the wise old woman at the gas station. There's stupid teen drama, bad puns, and buckets of blood. Guess even adds a Satanic subplot where a group of disenfranchised teens summon the demon Lilith to grant them wishes, poking fun at Yuppie parents' unfounded fear that their kids were listening to Stairway to Heaven backwards and using D&D to summon demons. The story is full of self-aware humor, my favorite example of which involves one of the characters pointing out how weird it is that no one is carrying a gun in Florida. Curses and murderous Satan worshipers are well within the realm of possibility, but no one packing heat in a Southern "stand your ground" state is way too weird. Guess manages to give us all this and still make her story genuinely scary. And for what felt like a pretty standard slasher set-up, I was actually caught off guard by a plot twist.

When it comes to her villains, however, Guess dispenses with the usual "irredeemably evil for the heck of it" masked murderers typical in slashers. Instead, she gives us a group of tragic figures who sell their humanity for a chance at freedom. It's appropriate that the teen killers summoned Lilith to grant them freedom, a figure who chose to become a demon rather than submit to the will of a man. As another famous Abrahamic rebel declares in Paradise Lost "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." The Alphabet of Ben Sira describes Lilith as Adam's first wife, created as his equal. After getting fed up with her husband's misogyny and bad sex, Liltith decides dick really isn't worth all this bullshit and flies off into the night, choosing to become a demon rather than submit to male authority. Modern Jewish feminists, such as Judith Plaskow, interpret her as "a female symbol for autonomy, sexual choice, and control of one’s own destiny." In her midrash, The Coming of Lilith, Plaskow writes "Lilith not only embodies people’s fears of how attraction to others can ruin their marriages, or of how risky childbearing and raising children are, but also represents a woman whom society cannot control—a woman who determines her own sexual partners, who is wild and unkempt, and who does not have the natural consequences of sexual activity, children." Demon or no, Lilith sounds like my kind of woman.

But my absolute favorite part of Cirque Berserk is Guess' tough-as-nails and whip-smart protagonist, Rochelle, who is anything but your typical final girl. Guess got the name from Rachel True's character in The Craft, whose frequent erasure from horror conventions and panel discussions Guess even wrote about here. She explains that this was her way of honoring True. "I love The Craft and I got the idea for Cirque Berserk a little after watching Horror Noir and hearing what Rachel said about being typecast as the best friend and always having to say "are you okay" a million different ways. My Rochelle is a response to that." And I say she's the perfect response! But what else would you expect from Guess, creator of the Black Girl's Guide to Horror blog? Cirque Berserk is a novella for Black and Indigenous horror fans who are sick of getting cast as victims, and hero helpers. As Guess states on her website:

"Horror is for everyone, but it doesn’t always feel that way with the lack of representation in the genre. Final Girls? White. Heroes? White. Villains? White. Masters of Horror? Mostly all white. Even those who talk about horror are all for the most part White. [My site] is the answer to the too white, too male, too cis, too straight genre that so many of us love but don’t see much of ourselves in."

The novella has very few problems. I felt like some of the descriptions were a bit lacking  and Guess has a tendency to "tell" rather than "show." The word choices could also get repetitive (for example using "said" repeatedly), but these are both fairly minor nitpicks for what's otherwise a very strong story. I also wish we'd been given a little more time with the victims before they started getting picked off one by one, but I otherwise can't complain about the novella's pacing. Building suspense is a great way to make your story scary, but sometimes you want a horror book that gets straight to the killing spree instead of dicking you around for ten gore-free chapters. And Guess knows how to give the reader that instant blood-soaked satisfaction we crave. Her book was the perfect length: long enough to get its point across without letting the story drag. It may not be as fancy or polished as some award-winning, gourmet novel, but who gives a fuck? You know which one you're going to be craving at 3 AM.

After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones



Formats - Print, digital

Publisher: Dark House Press

Genre:  Monster, Paranormal, Demon, Werewolf, Zombie, Killer/Slasher, Romance, Ghosts/Haunting, Sci-Fi Horror, Psychological Horror, Vampire
Audience: Adult

Tags: American Indian (Blackfoot/Niitsitapi), Queer (Gay Men), Disability (Paraplegic)

Takes Place in: US

Content Warnings: Animal Death, Child Endangerment, Child Death, Gore, Violence, Death, Torture, Homophobia, Self-Harm, Implied Sexual Assault (Highlight to view)
Blurb:

The fifteen stories in After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones explore the horrors and fears of the supernatural and the everyday. Included are two original stories, several rarities and out of print narratives, as well as a few "best of the year" inclusions. In "Thirteen," horrors lurk behind the flickering images on the big screen. "Welcome to the Reptile House" reveals the secrets that hide in our flesh. In "The Black Sleeve of Destiny," a single sweatshirt leads to unexpectedly dark adventures. And the title story, "After the People Lights Have Gone Off," is anything but your typical haunted house story. With an introduction by Edgar Award winner Joe R. Lansdale, and featuring fifteen full-page illustrations by Luke Spooner, After the People Lights Have Gone Off gets under your skin and stays there.

For Native American Heritage Month I’d thought I’d review a collection of short stories by one of horror’s greatest writers, Stephen Graham Jones.


Do you ever find yourself reading this awesome, interesting book, but then you get to the last chapter and go "What the fuck did I just read?" I'm not talking stories with ambiguous endings where it's left open to interpretation, like in Inception where it's unclear whether Cobb is still in a dream or not (and then you spend hours arguing about it on the internet), but the ending still makes sense. No, I'm referring to endings that are downright obfuscating (yay, I have a thesaurus!). Endings where you have to skip back to check if you missed some really obvious clue, only to find that no, the story really does end like that, and then you're left wondering if you're just not smart (or high) enough to "get it". For example, 2001: A Space Odyssey. I know it's this amazing, classic film, but what the hell was up with that giant space baby!?! Did the really obvious metaphor for the birth of humanity just fly over my head or did Kubrick just drop a bunch of LSD? Or both? Seriously WTF? Am I the only person who doesn't get it?



In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have tried watching this movie at 3 AM. 



Well, Stephen Graham Jones is a master of the WTF ending. In some ways this works to his advantage, like when it highlights the confusion and mental instability of the narrator, or preys on the reader's fear of the unknown. Subtle scares can be terrifying when done right, and when Jones gets it right, it works SO WELL, like with Second Chances where the final sentence of the story hits you like a punch in the gut. But Jones makes things too subtle you're left scratching your head and wondering what you're supposed to be scared of. It’s like when the creepy music starts playing in a film, you know you're supposed to feel uneasy because something bad is about to happen, but then, when the final dissonant chord is struck, everything just sort of ends without the payoff of a monster jumping out or even a terrified scream to imply something horrible just happened. Which is, unfortunately, really not that scary. After the People Lights Have Gone Off (the short story, not the book), Uncle, Xebico and Brush Monster all have this problem. Did someone die? Was there a monster? Is the narrator hallucinating? Did anything bad even happen? Am I just not smart enough to get it? It's especially frustrating when the rest of the story makes sense, like in Xebico, but then the ending just kind of goes off the rails. 



I'm pretty sure it's the sketchy looking rabbit.

Of course, none of this makes Jones a bad writer. He's actually incredibly talented, aside from the whole confusing ending thing which is probably due more to me being obtuse than a lack of skill on Jones' part. Like King, Jones has a real flair for making the mundane fucking terrifying.  For example, The Black Sleeve of Destiny, which is about a Lovecraftian hoodie. That's right, a hoodie. Well, that and some poor kid's mild kleptomania spinning out of control until it becomes a full blown obsession, but mostly the evil hoodie that seems to act as a pocket dimension with a mind of its own. There's also The Spider Box (such a creepy title) about a cardboard fruit box that resurrects the dead.  Somehow Jones managers to cover all the horror staples in his book (demons, ghosts, werewolves, vampires, killers, and zombies) while still making his stories seem fresh and unique. A great example of this is Welcome to the Reptile House, one of the most distinct and creative vampire stories I've ever read. In fact, I didn't even know it was a vampire story when I started reading it, so, uh, sorry for the spoiler. 



Septa Unella shows up any time someone reveals a spoiler. Or at least, she SHOULD.

But not all the stories in this collection are your traditional tales of horror, some could even be considered love stories. Albeit, really messed up, creepy love stories, but love stories nonetheless. One story is even called This is Love. Jones explores different kinds of relationships in his novel, from lovers and devoted spouses, to childhood crushes, to familial love between siblings, parents and children, and even extended family. Snow Monsters is a heartwarming tale about what a parent will sacrifice for their child, but with a supernatural twist. Doc’s Story, explores the bonds of a struggling family, and is one of the most human stories in the collection, ironic since it's about werewolves.  In After the People Lights Have Gone Off (again, the short story, not the collection) and The Dead are Not we see examples of the complete devotion married couples have for each other, even when things get difficult and terrifying. Of course, there are also inversions, like Uncle, which is about a couple that has fallen out of love, and the husband's feelings of guilt for not mourning his wife's death.

Oh, and a little tip, before picking this book up I strongly recommend checking out Stephen King's short story The Man in the Black Suit and H. F. Arnold's The Night Wire (both of which you should read regardless because they're awesome). Why? Well The Spindly Man is a horror story about a book group discussing King's famous horror story (how's that for Inception?), while Xebico is about adapting The Night Wire to the stage. And as cheesy as having a scary short story about another scary short story sounds, they're both pretty awesome, yet another indicator of Jones' talent.

Overall, After the People Lights Have Gone Off (this time I am referring to the book) is an amazing anthology by a talented author, as long as you're okay with stream of consciousness writing and not always understanding what the hell you just read. Or maybe it's just me, and the rest of you will have some deeper understanding of the stories. Jones' work definitely makes me feel like I'm the only one at the party not getting the joke.