Haunted ecologies by Corey Farrenkopf

I have some personal favorites, which I will examine a bit more in detail, but even for the ones I want to dive deeper into, there's always something I can relate to. A very old friendship. Some real-feeling online-dating. Family connections. Grief of a family member. 

Some stories haunt me more than others. Some have a twist, some just a twist-free ending. Sometimes I feel as if the story could go further, other times it's a clear ending, there won't come anything after (maybe even, because the perspective figure has been eaten). 

I had fun. And I am in awe of the author's ability to write about humans. Especially about humans which  might be (slightly) different from himself, like single women or older widowers with adult children. 

My favorite!

Look at the first sentence

"Bronski and Janet saved for three years but could only afford a room on the burnt floor."

There are so many answers and questions here. Obviously, Bronski and Janet do not have enough money for something they are really desperate to do (thus, the savings for three years). And even then, they can only afford the "burnt room". What is the burnt room? Why is it burnt, anyway? Is that even legal? That alone hints at some sort of dystopian future, which it absolutely is (in my eyes).

Bronski and Janet want to do a certain kind of holiday with their two kids, before they are too old to enjoy it. That's why they settle for the burnt room, even if it is a grave threat to their health (which is somehow the spookiest part of the whole collection). They have to wear respirators all the time.

Anyhow, as a mother myself, I can relate only too well. Bronski's perspective feels very real to me. Even as this is only a ten-minute-read, the story just sucks me into it and its world. Makes me afraid much more than any kind of classic monster!

The part about taking the kids to a nice place for money one cannot really spend reminds me of the novel Hum in a nice way. Or not so nice, as both futures are dystopian like hell!

The perfect title for this story. Mia (the first person narrator, who is currently doing her dissertation and also is teaching classes in university) and one of her students, Leo, regularly visit the forests of Maine in search of wolves. Those might be extinct in Maine, nobody has seen (or heard) any since years.

Both of them have another motive to do this research, though.

Leo fancies Mia, and she is aware of his affection and patient, although he sometimes is clumsy in his attempts to gain her affection and even mansplains her in her research (which is handled very nicely by her and entertaining while reading). 

Mia, on the other hand, does not really look for wolves.

She looks for her mother, who vanished in the woods five years ago, doing the exact same research as Mia and Leo are doing now.

This story absolutely lives by the details, the depths of the characters (mainly Mia, but also the absent mother, Leo and even a side character who appears only briefly) and the honesty, by which mainly Mia is described. I can feel the longing that Mia feels for her mother. I feel her. Her longing, even the longing for her mother by her body is described very subtly. I feel the loss. The hope. 

A great story with a great ending. 

I particularly liked this one. It's a great example of Farrenkopf's skill to combine spooky stuff with very common, daily struggles of very normal people. (I think there is a horror author who lives on this kind of thing for a couple of decades.) 

"They'd accepted that Cam was a werewolf."

Well, another one of those cool first sentences. It gets even better. Obviously, the research about his son being a werewolf goes like this:

"His father, Clark, watched fifty-seven YouTube videos from other parents ..."

Well. YouTube has everything, doesn't it?

"Cam was in fourth grade, hair sheared into a bowl cut, front teeth coming in crowded."

 This is a very short story and it's not free of humor, at least not for what I read from it. Having a kid in school as well (third grade, not fourth, and not a werewolf), some of Cam#s problems, with bullies and otherwise, ring familiar to me. 

Alva rides the train with a box full with bones. There's a lot to smile about in this story, too. at least first. But then a man offers to buy the box from her. She does not want to sell. There's a severe sonflict of interest which puts suspense in this story.

That's a great one. It's perfect in its hintings on dark stuff in the past of the story's protagonist Lark. He is in a bad situation, after a divorce living in the trailer of his uncle, who does not talk to him any more (but his aunt still does so, one of the few who still does). Obviously, there was a really bad accusation in Lark's recent past. Even his parents do not talk to him any more.

I really like how the relationships are described, especially the one between Lark and his elderly aunt Jillian. The dialogues are just great!

Plus, in retrospective, Lark's marriage to Harriet and their sex life is shown in a really interesting way, which makes Lark to one of the most interesting (not necessarily nicest) figures in a short story so far. 

The ending is very dark indeed.

This might even count as a criminal short story, which is very difficult to write. It's a 25-minute-read, so one of the longer ones. And clearly one of the stories which is not only about horror, but about something else, something almost everybody will be able to relate to: Family ties and traditions. And, more specific, about belonging to a place (or not belonging). Ron, the protagonist, is not from the peninsula, but his (not dead) wife was, and now, his son is as well.  It's also a very dark ending.

Just look at how Ron is described:

"Ron lacked a smartphone. He disliked technology, worried about cancer. He hated the thought of devices pressed against his body. He'd read articles on the subject, blamed their invisible fingers for his wife's brain cancer. Mel would have gone four years that October."

Very dark and in a spooky way a very convincing ending. What happens if you are consequent and follow the rules without compassionately checking them first? It could be read as a metaphor. All so more horrific then.

The longest (about 45 minutes) story in the collection, plus, the only first-person-narrator, which was nice for a change. Here, as well as in some other story, the commitment von the protagonist to a person who is acting in a more than questionable way is well supported by their long relationship, which has started during their youth (and had a long break due to a trauma for his friend, Lucas, which also turns out to be important for a plot twist). Plus, the term "eco horror" fits very well, as this is (partly) about some really icky cause to kill trees (hundreds of them in a really well-described and not so tasty way). 

That’s an even more subtle story, seemingly about the worsening of daily life, probably due to Climate Change (rising sea level, lack of drink water), and the apocalypse always in sight.

It’s about two adults (Laura and Ray) that also share a bed. Ray has daughters and is worried about them. Both have recently lost somebody, Ray, his wife,Laura has lost her father. Laura’s father has left something that might work. She describes it as science, but the frontier to some kind of magic, some kind of spell seems not very thick here to me.

What is this really about? Maybe about difficult choices, but also about what’s left when we will be gone (which is true for all of us). Also about hope, about lying to people we care for.

Reminds me a bit of Kelsea Yu's A scarcity of sharks, at least in its premise. Glen studies (and tries to feed) a sea beast, then watches a man die. But that's not enough, afterwards the police suspect him that he has something to do with the man's death (especially as the body never was found). Glen has to be afraid that he will be put to prison, but also, that nobody cares for the beast if he's not around.

That's an interesting priority, but I absolutely bought it!