Spin a Black Yarn Commentary
SPOILERS AHEAD!
From Josh Malerman, the author of Bird Box, comes a collection of five spellbinding novellas called Spin a Black Yarn. Each unique to the next, the stories are immediately intriguing for an exciting reading experience. What a pleasant thing to trust a storyteller, to fall into stories headfirst, to hunger for the next idea, rather than clinging to the end of each story for its familiarity. That’s often been my experience with short story collections: the moment you start to finally get your footing in the story, it ends, and you have to wipe the slate clean for the next one. Perhaps it is the fact that the stories in Spin a Black Yarn are novellas and not shorts; you do in fact have more time with the story world. Malerman’s expertise is clear in how he is able to satisfyingly fulfill the promise of each concept in limited space; some tales are delicious bites, all the tastier for not being a full meal.
“Half the House is Haunted” raises questions about the rules of fear and the imaginary barriers we place between ourselves and terror. An older sister insists to her little brother that half their house is haunted. But which half is it? The deeper we go into the story the sillier our preconceived ideas become. Is it the basement that’s haunted? Or the attic? Is it the dark places in the house? Or is the haunting in the light? Where is safe? And how do we ever know where we stand?
“Argyle” is about a dying father revealing to his loved ones on his death bed that his whole life he wanted to be a killer, but never acted on it. His story unravels his entire family, yet brings him such joy as to express his true self— finally— on his last day alive. What makes an ethical life? Having dark thoughts but not acting on them or not having any dark thoughts at all? What is love if not protecting your loved ones from yourself?
A striking story, “The Jupiter Drop” follows a space tourist who literally drops through Jupiter— a two month fall after a year-long trip to Jupiter. Our protagonist lives in a virtual apartment, surrounded by glass, provided by the fictional Downey Company. As he plummets through the gas giant, amidst the awe-inspiring views of the solar system’s largest planet, he starts to see impossible things and wonders what the Downey Company isn’t telling him, and after so many months in isolation, wonders if he is dead or alive.
In “Doug and Judy Buy the House Washer”— perhaps my favorite of the stories— an awful, trendy couple faces their unethical past decisions while trapped together, waiting for the end of their new, expensive House Washer device’s cleaning cycle. Once inside a “safe” oxygenated tube, the couple watches as their house is flooded by a patented cleaning solution, designed to clean each and every single item in a home, including things they may have forgotten they had. As they encounter evidence of their past transgressions against friends, family, and even each other, they continue to rationalize their choices under the belief that life is a win or lose game. The only way to win is to make others lose. But it’s a 90 minute cleaning cycle— plenty long enough for a malfunction to turn the situation frightening.
Finally, the last story, and the longest, is titled “Ergorov”, which, not for the faint of heart, includes a horrifying scene where a man eats a rat. You may want to know that going in. Though each story is wildly different, they are all connected by the setting: Samhattan, Michigan. The final tale, set in Samhattan’s historic Little Russia, is a revenge story following a family after the devastating murder of one from triplet brothers. The two remaining decide to find their brother’s killer and haunt him until he unravels. But when the wrong man is to hang for the crime, the family members must face whether they let the innocent man die or tell the truth, even if it hurts the brothers seeking “frontier justice”. The story is translated by Ethel Hasbro from Galina Khanukov’s Notable History of Little Russia, Samhattan.
If none of these stories sounds intriguing, then this collection is probably not for you. But, for me, the read fed my appetite for imaginative horror. An electrifying feeling finds me as I read stories like these that prove there is no end in sight of unique horror concepts. There’s endless room. Abundance.