Song For the Unraveling of the World: Stories

Brian Evenson's collection gathers twenty-two short stories of dark fantasy and quiet dread, in which the line between the supernatural and the merely disturbed is never quite clear. A man senses that his world is always on the point of coming apart; an actor on a film set feels something watching through a flaw in reality; other characters become convinced they are being followed by people whose purpose they cannot name. A few stories turn darkly comic, including one about a family with unsettling holiday traditions. Evenson leaves many questions open, letting readers decide how much is real and how much lives in the minds of his characters. The book won the World Fantasy Award for best collection and suits adult readers of literary horror.