The Disappointment of Small Terrors

Brian Evenson, A Collapse of Horses: a Collection of Stories

An American tourist in rural France watches secrets unfold by starlight, getting drawn deeper in, until he cannot escape. A childhood game of dares causes lifelong consequences to flare up brutally. A possessed teddy bear appears to have stolen a stillborn infant’s soul, and now sets its sights on the grieving father. A wounded cowboy stubbornly refuses to die, keeping his pardner bound to an old promise.

Brian Evenson comes highly recommended by readers who consider themselves connoisseurs of horror fiction. As a recent convert to the genre, I wanted to experience different kinds of horror, beyond the well-hyped chestnuts of Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft. Evenson famously merges horror with the understated introspection of so-called “literary fiction,” a fusion that’s earned him loyalty from countless critics and fans. Perhaps I’m just missing something.

Though I wouldn’t call Evenson “formulaic,” his writings have a recognizable pattern. He begins by taking some well-loved genre—Westerns, family dramas, science fiction, slice-of-life vignettes. Then one character realizes something doesn’t add up. A path that should lead straight becomes labyrinthine, perhaps, or an ordinary item becomes somehow ominous. The complication is seldom strictly supernatural, though for Evenson, naturalism is usually optional.

Our protagonist, having realized the complication, chooses somehow to resist. That resistance may involve actively opposing chaos, by trying to kill someone or destroy an artifact. Or it may simply involve obstinately sticking with whatever the protagonist believes to be true, even despite massive evidence and social opprobrium. Whatever form that resistance takes, the protagonist is willing to stand by that choice, no matter the consequences.

Then, usually: nothing. Evenson generally pours energy into creating characters, situations, and narrative MacGuffins, but apparently gets fatigued and quits. His stories frequently suffer the curse of today’s short-story market: the author creates the foundations for something complex and promising, but decides that, because he’s already written the story’s major themes, he doesn’t need to waste time on such fleeting trivia as action, dialog, character, or plot.

Brian Evenson

In “Cult,” a man agrees to help his abusive ex-girlfriend, thinking that makes him the bigger person, only to realize he’s getting sucked back in. Sounds like a great premise, right? Except Evenson writes the relationship entirely in sweeping generalities, long on adjectives, so we never understand exactly what made their bond so compelling, much less why he’d return. They’re simply going through the motions of a paperback cautionary tale.

“Past Reno,” a family drama redolent of Stephen King’s influence, features a man driving back to claim his portion of his sadistic father’s inheritance. Except the protagonist only vaguely defines what he previously fled, what horrific reckoning might await on the old homestead. He neither knows nor cares, and therefore, neither do we. The story culminates in the protagonist smashing a bathroom mirror, basically to do anything besides idle woolgathering.

My favorite story, “The Dust,” reflects cinematic influences like Ridley Scott and John Carpenter. A mining platform on a distant planet, thousands of miles from civilization, becomes infiltrated with fine, powdery dust that seemingly overtakes everything. The skeleton crew becomes isolated and paranoid, forcing the security chief to take steps. Soon, it becomes impossible to distinguish allies from enemies, and reality from one’s own internal demons.

But even this, my favorite story, the one which most utilizes Evenson’s fabled talent for misdirection and unease, ends abruptly, like Evenson lost interest. Time after time, Evenson’s stories tease a Shirley Jackson-like sense of existential foreboding, we barely start to care, and then Evenson moves on. Our emotional investments come to nothing, and I’m left feeling, not scared or disquieted, but swindled. Like he took my money and ran.

In over half of Evenson’s stories, characters don’t have names. Protagonists are identified by pronouns: “he” or (less often) “she.” Supporting characters have titles based on roles: “the doctor,” “the other man,” “his father.” Entire stories happen with no proper nouns. In individual stories, this imprecision maybe induces dread, but as stories accumulate, the vagueness bleeds together, making it difficult to even remember which story we’re reading.

I began reading this collection with high hopes, based on Evenson’s reputation. Before long, reading became an act of rubbernecking, transfixed by the grotesquerie of a train wreck in motion. As my lack of emotional reaction accrued, I realized I was simply going through the motions. Then eventually, I didn’t even have energy enough to do that.

Maybe this book misrepresents Evenson’s corpus. Who knows. After reading this, I won’t be going back to investigate any further.