Windeye: Stories

By Brian Evenson

Haunting, gripping, and psychologically fierce tales that illuminate an unsettling side of humanity from “one of the treasures of American story writing” (Jonathan Lethem). Featuring the O. Henry Prize–winning short story “Windeye,” this collection of Brian Evenson’s masterful stories “involve impossible scenarios and alternative realities” that are “always surprising” (Bookforum). A woman falling out of sync with the world; a king’s servant hypnotized by his murderous horse; a transplanted ear with a mind of its own—the characters in these twenty-five stories live as interlopers in a world shaped by mysterious disappearances and unfathomable discrepancies between the real and imagined, revealing the breadth and depth of Evenson’s uncanny vision.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Release date: May 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781566893077

Brian Evenson

Called "one of the world's foremost authors of books about programming" by International Developer magazine, best-selling author Brian Evenson has written about programming for over three decades. His books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been widely translated. Brian is interested in all facets of computing, but his primary focus is computer languages. He is the author of numerous books on Java, C, C++, Python etc. Brian holds BA and MCS degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign.

Book preview

Windeye

1

THEY LIVED, WHEN HE WAS GROWING UP, IN A SIMPLE HOUSE, AN OLD bungalow with a converted attic and sides covered in cedar shake. In the back, where an oak thrust its branches over the roof, the shake was light brown, almost honey. In the front, where the sun struck it full, it had weathered to a pale gray, like a dirty bone. There, the shingles were brittle, thinned by sun and rain, and if you were careful you could slip your fingers up behind some of them. Or at least his sister could. He was older and his fingers were thicker, so he could not.

Looking back on it, many years later, he often thought it had started with that, with her carefully working her fingers up under a shingle as he waited and watched to see if it would crack. That was one of his earliest memories of his sister, if not the earliest.

His sister would turn around and smile, her hand gone to knuckles, and say, I feel something. What am I feeling? And then he would ask questions. Is it smooth? he might ask. Does it feel rough? Scaly? Is it cold-blooded or warm-blooded? Does it feel red? Does it feel like its claws are in or out? Can you feel its eye move? He would keep on, watching the expression on her face change as she tried to make his words into a living, breathing thing, until it started to feel too real for her and, half giggling, half screaming, she whipped her hand free.

There were other things they did, other ways they tortured each other, things they both loved and feared. Their mother didn’t know anything about it, or if she did she didn’t care. One of them would shut the other inside the toy chest and pretend to leave the room, waiting there silently until the one in the chest couldn’t stand it any longer and started to yell. That was a hard game for him because he was afraid of the dark, but he tried not to show that to his sister. Or one of them would wrap the other tight in blankets, and then the trapped one would have to break free. Why they had liked it, why they had done it, he had a hard time remembering later, once he was grown. But they had liked it, or at least he had liked it—there was no denying that—and he had done it. No denying that either.

So at first those games, if they were games, and then, later, something else, something worse, something decisive. What was it again? Why was it hard, now that he was grown, to remember? What was it called? Oh, yes, Windeye.

2

How had it begun? And when? A few years later, when the house started to change for him, when he went from thinking about each bit and piece of it as a separate thing and started thinking of it as a house. His sister was still coming up close, entranced by the gap between shingle and wall, intrigued by the twist and curve of a crack in the concrete steps. It was not that she didn’t know there was a house, only that the smaller bits were more important than the whole. For him, though, it had begun to be the reverse.

So he began to step back, to move back in the yard far enough away to take the whole house in at once. His sister would give him a quizzical look and try to coax him in closer, to get him involved in something small. For a while, he’d play to her level, narrate to her what the surface she was touching or the shadow she was glimpsing might mean, so she could pretend. But over time he drifted out again. There was something about the house, the house as a whole, that troubled him. But why? Wasn’t it just like any house?

His sister, he saw, was standing beside him, staring at him. He tried to explain it to her, tried to put a finger on what fascinated him. This house, he told her. It’s a little different. There’s something about it … But he saw, from the way she looked at him, that she thought it was a game, that he was making it up.

What are you seeing? she asked, with a grin.

Why not? he thought. Why not make it a game?

"What are you seeing?" he asked her.

Her grin faltered a little but she stopped staring at him and stared at the house.

I see a house, she said.

Is there something wrong with it? he prompted.

She nodded, then looked to him for approval.

What’s wrong? he asked.

Her brow tightened like a fist. I don’t know, she finally said. The window?

What about the window?

I want you to do it, she said. It’s more fun.

He sighed, and then pretended to think. Something wrong with the window, he said. Or not the window exactly but the number of windows. She was smiling, waiting. The problem is the number of windows. There’s one more window on the outside than on the inside.

He covered his mouth with his hand. She was smiling and nodding, but he couldn’t go on with the game. Because, yes, that was exactly the problem, there was one more window on the outside than on the inside. That, he knew, was what he’d been trying to see all along.

3

But he had to make sure. He had his sister move from room to room in the house, waving to him from each window. The ground floor was all right, he saw her each time. But in the converted attic, just shy of the corner, there was a window at which she never appeared.

It was small and round, probably only a foot and a half in diameter. The glass was dark and wavery. It was held in place by a strip of metal about as thick as his finger, giving the whole of the circumference a dull, leaden rim.

He went inside and climbed the stairs, looking for the window himself, but it simply wasn’t there. But when he went back outside, there it was.

For a time, it felt like he had brought the problem to life himself by stating it, that if he hadn’t said anything the half-window wouldn’t be there. Was that possible? He didn’t think so, that wasn’t the way the world worked. But even later, once he was grown, he still found himself wondering sometimes if it was his fault, if it was something he had done. Or rather, said.

Staring up at the half-window, he remembered a story his grandmother had told him, back when he was very young, just three or four, just after his father had left and just before his sister was born. Well, he didn’t remember it exactly, but he remembered it had to do with windows. Where she came from, his grandmother said, they used to be called not windows but something else. He couldn’t remember the word, but remembered that it started with a v. She had said the word and then had asked, Do you know what this means? He shook his head. She repeated the word, slower this time.

This first part, she had said, it means ‘wind.’ This second part, it means ‘eye.’ She looked it him with her own pale, steady eye. "It is important to know that a window can be instead a windeye."

So he and his sister called it that, windeye. It was, he told her, how the wind looked into the house and so was not a window at all. So of course they couldn’t look out of it; it was not a window at all, but a windeye.

He was worried she was going to ask questions, but she didn’t. And then they went into the house to look again, to make sure it wasn’t a window after all. But it still wasn’t there on the inside.

Then they decided to get a closer look. They had figured out which window was nearest to it and opened that and leaned out of it. There it was. If they leaned far enough, they could see it and almost touch it.

I could reach it, his sister said. If I stand on the sill and you hold my legs, I could lean out and touch it.

No, he started to say, but, fearless, she had already clambered onto the sill and was leaning out. He wrapped his arms around her legs to keep her from falling. He was just about to pull her back inside when she leaned farther and he saw her finger touch the windeye. And then it was as if she had dissolved into smoke and been sucked into the windeye. She was gone.

4

It took him a long time to find his mother. She was not inside the house, nor was she outside in the yard. He tried the house next door, the Jorgensens, and then the Allreds, then the Dunfords. She wasn’t anywhere. So he ran back home, breathless, and somehow his mother was there now, lying on the couch, reading.

What’s wrong? she asked.

He tried to explain it best he could. Who? she asked at first and then said Slow down and tell it again, and then, But who do you mean? And then, once he’d explained again, with an odd smile:

But you don’t have a sister.

But of course he had a sister. How could his mother have forgotten? What was wrong? He tried to describe her, to explain what she looked like, but his mother just kept shaking her head.

No, she said firmly. You don’t have a sister. You never had one. Stop pretending. What’s this really about?

Which made him feel that he should hold himself very still, that he should be very careful about what he said, that if he breathed wrong more parts of the world would disappear.

After talking and talking, he tried to get his mother to come out and look at the windeye.

Window, you mean, she said, voice rising.

No, he said, beginning to grow hysterical as well. "Not window. Windeye." And then he had her by the hand and was tugging her to the door. But no, that was wrong too, because no matter which window he pointed at she could tell him where it was in the house. The windeye, just like his sister, was no longer there.

But he kept insisting it had been there, kept insisting too that he had a sister.

And that was when the trouble really started.

5

Over the years there were moments when he was almost convinced, moments when he almost began to think—and perhaps even did think for weeks or months at a time—that he never had a sister. It would have been easier to think this than to think she had been alive and then, perhaps partly because of him, not alive. Being not alive wasn’t like being dead, he felt: it was much, much worse. There were years too when he simply didn’t choose, when he saw her as both real and make-believe and sometimes neither of those things. But in the end what made him keep believing in her—despite the line of doctors that visited him as a child, despite the rift it made between him and his mother, despite years of forced treatment and various drugs that made him feel like his head had been filled with wet sand, despite years of having to pretend to be cured—was simply this: he was the only one who believed his sister was real. If he stopped believing, what hope would there be for her?

Thus he found himself, even when his mother was dead and gone and he himself was old and alone, brooding on his sister, wondering what had become of her. He wondered too if one day she would simply reappear, young as ever, ready to continue with the games they had played. Maybe she would simply suddenly be there again, her tiny fingers worked up behind a cedar shingle, staring expectantly at him, waiting for him to tell her what she was feeling, to make up words for what was pressed there between the house and its skin, lying in wait.

What is it? he would say in a hoarse voice, leaning on his cane.

I feel something, she would say. What am I feeling?

And he would set about describing it. Does it feel red? Does it feel warm-blooded or cold? Is it round? Is it smooth like glass? All the while, he knew, he would be thinking not about what he was saying but about the wind at his back. If he turned around, he would be wondering, would he find the wind’s strange, baleful eye staring at him?

That wasn’t much, but it was the best he could hope for. Chances were he wouldn’t get even that. Chances were there would be no sister, no wind. Chances were that he’d be stuck with the life he was living now, just as it was, until the day when he was either dead or not living himself.

The Second Boy

AKIND OF DARKNESS HAD SWEPT UP VERY QUICKLY TO CATCH THEM unaware. The wind rose with it, crusting the snow into ice, the cold become now crisp and hard. As they walked, snow began to fall again until soon Leppin could no longer see the trail. He could hardly see Dierk either, except as a dim shape on its way to being lost.

Hadn’t we better stop? Leppin asked.

But Dierk apparently could not make up his mind to do so. He shook his head. There must still be some trace of the trail, and perhaps they were still on it or not too far from it or would find it soon. Or perhaps they would soon see a light and be able to make for it.

In the wind, Leppin caught only scraps of what the fellow was saying. He trudged on, just behind. The wind rose further and he could feel his fingers growing numb. He kept walking until he could no longer feel them at all.

It’s very cold, he finally said. We have to stop.

At first Dierk didn’t hear him over the wind. Leppin had to hurry his steps and wrap an arm round Dierk’s shoulders and shout into his ear. Even after this, there was a moment in which Dierk gave no response. Then came a short, curt nod that made Leppin believe he had given in.

But no, after Leppin released him Dierk just kept walking. After a moment Leppin, not knowing what else to do, followed.

The drifts were deep enough that sometimes when the crust of ice broke Leppin sank to his thigh, the snow underneath powdery and clinging to everything. He could feel the bones ache in his feet, and then that passed too and he couldn’t feel his feet at all. It was hard for him even to remember where he was, or who he was.

Dierk was a little ahead, back stiff, marching resolutely forward, a vague, withdrawn figure. And then little more than a shadow. And then, as the snow thickened in the air, he was suddenly gone. Leppin called out once, but Dierk didn’t hear. Or if he did, he didn’t stop.

Leppin waited, stamping his feet, wondering if Dierk would notice he was gone and double back. When Dierk didn’t, he tried to follow.

The storm was still growing. In the darkness and cold, he couldn’t find Dierk’s tracks. He wasn’t even sure he was moving in the right direction. He was surprised to notice his body seemed comfortably warm. His face, too, seemed like it might be warm, though he couldn’t feel it exactly. Why not just dig out a place for himself in the snow, make a little cave, a little hole, and wait for the storm to pass?

Instead he lurched onward, kept moving. It was as if someone else was walking, not him: a body moving bluntly forward, rudderless, under its own power. He let it go, just trying to stay vaguely connected to it.

It went on like that for a while, with Leppin less and less aware of what was happening around him, until he walked into a tree limb, sending a cascade of snow down onto his head. A branch had torn into the side of his neck. Not that he could feel his neck exactly, but there was a wetness there that was different from the other wetness, and a faint smell too. Unless it was something he was only imagining or making up as he went, since it was too dark to see and his hands and face were too numb to feel.

There were around him other trees as well, he soon found, encountering one and then another and then a third. He struggled his lighter out of his pocket and watched his gloved fingers try to flick it alight, was surprised that they finally managed. He cupped the flame with one hand and saw below him nearly bare ground, almost no snow: a matrix of pine needles and dead vegetation and mud spidered through with veins of frost.

He prodded the ground with the toe of his boot. Some places it remained hard, like a single consistent organism. In others it came slowly apart, the ice not strong enough to hold the dead leaves and other matter together.

He kept at it until he found a large spot that was loose and mostly dry, the leaves and needles such that he could push them together into a heap with his boot. From there it was little enough to bring the lighter down among the needles and leaves until they smoldered and, crackling, caught flame. He kept uprooting needles and leaves and adding them to the fire until the flames were high enough for him to start stripping bark off the nearest trees.

The underside of the bark was threaded with worm trails. It was also studded with black blotches that, as the bark caught fire, began to unfurl and move, becoming small black vermin that spun madly about before sizzling away. Unless it was just that he was seeing things, parts of his brain going dim and dying from the cold. He tried not to think about this, carefully feeding bigger and bigger chunks of wood onto the fire until he had a roaring blaze.

An hour later he had built a shelter just big enough for him to crawl inside. In the glow of the fire he could see the trees all around him but could not tell where the forest ended or where he had come from. He had removed his boots and gloves and they lay there beside the fire, slowly steaming. Feeling had begun to creep back into his hands and feet, his fingers and toes feeling as though they were being bitten repeatedly by flies. His face throbbed; it felt as though his eyes were scraping against their sockets as they moved. He heaped more fuel onto the fire and then slowly lay back in the shelter, staring at the flames until, almost without knowing, he had fallen asleep.

He woke up shivering. The fire, he could just see through the entrance of the makeshift shelter, had guttered, flickering down to almost nothing. I should get up and keep it going, he thought, but even though he was shivering, he found it very hard to imagine moving.

Maybe he slept a little, his eyes slightly open. Or maybe almost no time passed at all. But in either case suddenly he realized that the fire had flared again and he was no longer shivering. Something was shaking him, rocking one of his legs back and forth. He let his eyes fall into focus and there was Dierk.

How did you find me? Leppin asked.

Let me come in, said Dierk.

There’s not room in here, said Leppin. There’s only room for one.

Nonsense, said Dierk, and began to push his way up Leppin’s legs and in. The shelter itself groaned and threatened to come asunder, then the boughs and branches to either side simply slipped and settled, leaving the shelter more or less intact. Dierk was pressed against its wall on one side and against Leppin’s legs and chest on the other. His body was very cold, and once he was inside, the snow on his coat and trousers began to melt.

Take your wet things off, Leppin said.

It was hard enough to get in here, said Dierk. That’s all I can do.

I’m freezing, said Leppin.

All right, said Dierk. Just a minute.

But he just lay there, not moving. What’s wrong with him? wondered Leppin, and then couldn’t help but wonder, What’s wrong with me?

Dierk just lay beside him, not speaking, not moving.

Dierk, said Leppin. When Dierk didn’t respond he repeated his name, louder this time.

What is it? Dierk whispered, his mouth somewhere close to Leppin’s right ear.

How did you find me?

What?

How did you find me?

What’s wrong with you? asked Dierk.

What do you mean? asked Leppin, astonished.

I already answered that question, Dierk said.

No, you didn’t, said Leppin, voice rising. And then when Dierk didn’t answer, he reached over and tapped his forehead. Answer again, he said.

I found you, whispered Dierk. Isn’t that enough?

Enough for what? wondered Leppin, and then, afraid of it, he let that thought drift slowly away.

Tell me a story, said Dierk a little while later, same dull whisper. He was staring up at the ceiling of the shelter, eyes hardly blinking, features difficult to make out in the flickering light.

A story? asked Leppin. About what?

While I’m warming up, said Dierk. A story.

But I don’t know any stories, said Leppin. Get closer to the fire, he said. Leave the shelter and get closer to the fire. That’s what will warm you up.

In a minute, said Dierk.

Leppin waited. Dierk didn’t move. Finally Leppin pushed at him.

A story, Dierk said.

I don’t know any,

Reviews for Windeye

[michaeladams1979 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant collection of some of the strangest stories I've ever read. Each is a unique and singular experience, fairy-tale horror-stories of the most twisted, yet perfectly self-contained logic imaginable. Yet never does one of the stories take the easy-out 'rug-pull' of introducing an unreliable narrator element in the final pages of the story, the cop-out of 'oh by-the-way, they were crazy the whole time and imagined the whole thing!' Indeed, if Evenson is going to have an unreliable narrator, you know about it from the first paragraphs, and their mental confusion or altered state drives the story from that point forward. I definitely would recommend this collection to lovers of the dark, the strange, the weird, or even the bizarre, and of stories of the highest caliber.

[fuzzy_patters · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This collection of "literary horror" short stories was hit and miss for me. Many of them were very good and very weird. However, after story after story of things not being as they originally seem and everything ending in horror, the stories became stale and predictable by the end of the book. I would recommend reading a few of these at a time instead of reading the book straight through as I did. I think they would pack more punch that way.

[lriley_43 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Some of these stories are kind of like a cross between Borges and Poe. There's is a bit of the grotesque--another bit of displacement--a bit of the supernatural and another bit of fantasy. The stories here are well written and plotted. Not sure that they are easy to categorize as horror or sci-fi or whatever genre you would have. There are psychological elements to them that seem to take the stories into broader categorizations. Anyway most all the stories are interesting and there is a broad range here but my fiction reading preferences are really in other areas. Even so I think this collection was well worth reading and I'd certainly be open to reading some of Evenson's other works.

[course8 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Suppose you couldn't trust your own mind, your consciousness, your memories, your grasp of reality? What would it be like if you have a sister and then she disappears and then no one else has any memory of her? Suppose you are possessed by the murderous will of a horse? What if you were being monitored by beings in another dimension? How about if you lose an eye but then your empty eye socket sends images of wraith-like creatures to your optic nerve that others can't discern and then they start to communicate with you? Suppose the sound and picture are increasingly out of synch, not on your flat screen TV but in your real life? In the Windeye collection Brian Evenson has crafted a set of short stories that range from deeply unsettling to horrifying. He presents worlds in which reality can shift to something quite different in the blink of an eye. He challenges the concept that we are in control of what we think and how we act. In one story an ear takes control of a soldier, in another a transplanted arm begins to think. He also writes about realities governed by written words - tatters of paper are thought to guide a man's life, a listing of names defines who is dead and who is alive in a group. I found the book to be spooky and haunting. The writing is skillful with many of the stories open-ended, allowing the reader to complete the final scene.

[sean191 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

You'd be hard-pressed to find any collection of short stories where every story is a gem. I think it's even more of a challenge when you're dealing with one author putting together that collection of short stories because he or she will either pull the same trick over and over again, making it stale, or feel compelled to try to deliver very different stories with each new offering, meaning they're going to stray into an area that's not so good...Brian Evenson isn't an exception. But, that being said, some of the stories in this collection are REALLY good. And the ones that fall flat at the very least, are brief. Of the stories worth reading, I thought The Sladen Suit and Anskan House were worth the price of admission alone. Meanwhile, there's still some interesting pieces that could be enjoyable if you're picking up and putting down in between reading other books.

[spiceca_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Usually when there is a collection of works I always find at least a few of the works to be under par. Not so with the little book of weird gems. I enjoyed all the stories even though some had me scratching my head a bit at the end. If you enjoy the strange and disharmonious tales that sometime leave the story open-ended then this would be a nice addition to your library.

[kkisser_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of strange horror and fairy tale-inspired tales that kept me from sleeping at night. In a short few pages, Evenson is able to create atmospheric stories that evoke the horrors of human nature or the unknown. A great collection for those who like to get the chills at night.

[richardderus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rating: 4.25* of five The Book Description: A woman falling out of sync with the world; a king's servant hypnotized by his murderous horse; a transplanted ear with a mind of its ownthe characters in these stories live as interlopers in a world shaped by mysterious disappearances and unfathomable discrepancies between the real and imagined. Brian Evenson, master of literary horror, presents his most far-ranging collection to date, exploring how humans can persist in an increasingly unreal world. Haunting, gripping, and psychologically fierce, these tales illuminate a dark and unsettling side of humanity.Praised by Peter Straub for going "furthest out on the sheerest, least sheltered narrative precipice," Brian Evenson is the author of ten books of fiction. He has been a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the World Fantasy Award, and the winner of the International Horror Guild Award, and the American Library Association's award for Best Horror Novel. Fugue State was named one of Time Out New York's Best Books of 2009. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and three O. Henry Prizes, including one for the title story in "Windeye," Evenson lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where he directs Brown University's Literary Arts Department. My Review: Since there are 25 stories in this book's 188pp, I will not be utilizing the Bryce Method (named for the illustrious blogger/reviewer/Goodreader Bryce, of revered memory for his excellent and frequent reviews before the twins were born) as the reviews of each story would be as long as the stories themselves are. For such is the nature of Evenson's writing. It's a challenge to make his storytelling anything other than real-time without spoilering or simply regurgitating his words.It's not that his writing is Lovecraftian in its ornament, or Kingly in its wallop. His eerie and atmospheric stories are concise, and have their own unadorned grandeur. If his prose was architecture, I'd call it Art Deco with Fascist Monumental leanings.So here's a species of compromise on Bryce Method reviewing...stories grouped by stars!5 of 5“Windeye”“Discrepancy”“The Process”4 of 5“The Second Boy”“Angel of Death”“The Dismal Mirror”“Legion”“Hurlock's Law”“The Tunnel”“South of the Beast” (maybe this gets 4.5....)“The Absent Eye”“Tapadera”“They”“The Oxygen Protocol”“The Drownable Species”All of the others are three stars...good, solid stories, but not for whatever reason outstanding compared to their peers in this collection.I'm not sure I'd call any of them “horror” stories. I'd call them all, one and all, atmospheric evocations of unsettling and unsettled mood, of disturbed and disturbing malfunctions of perception. I'd call them all quietly unnervingly accurate night-scopes on the rifles your inner demons bring to bear at the back of your neck on windy, rainy nights when the power goes out and the flashlight batteries are dead.If that kind of reading has no appeal, horseman, pass on.One bleat of dissatisfaction: This book has the UGLIEST cover...a dark, blood-mixed-with-poo colored block set off by a ragged edge of trailing bloody red on a white background. Y.U.C.K. Drop-out type for the advert on the back reinforces the low-budget look, as does the Preparation-H-hued type they set the title in. In a store, I'd pass it up with a wrinkled nose and a scoff. This reaction is not to put y'all off! The stories make up for the dismal disappointment of the cover. Really, honestly, they do.

[tottman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Windeye is a collection of short horror stories by Brian Evenson. Most of the stories are quite short, 10 pages or less, but no less powerful for their brevity. In many ways, I think it takes more skill to write a complete, self-contained and satisfying story in so few words. Brian Evenson has this skill in abundance.These are not ghost or vampire or zombie stories. Nor are they even bump-in-the night stories. These are stories that worm their way into your subconscious and fill you with a sense of dread and disquiet. They contain ideas that take root and become more horrifying the longer you contemplate them. Evenson skillfully makes use of the natural fear that exists in the unknown, both external and internal. What you can’t see or understand is much more frightening than what you can.I enjoyed some of the stories more than others, as might be expected in any short story collection. All were very well written and often produced strong reactions. Think a blend of Edgar Allen Poe and The Twilight Zone. I didn’t consume the stories all in one sitting. Each story almost demanded a pause for reflection upon completion. The titular Windeye, as well as the story of a woman falling out of time were among my favorites. People trapped in unfamiliar places or situations, identity confusion, loss of control, and loss of a sense of self are all themes that occur in these stories. They are frightening as well as thought-provoking. Windeye is a collection for anyone who enjoys horror stories, as well as anyone who appreciates a well-written short story of any genre. I was fortunate to receive an advance copy of this book.

[cvjacobs · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Brian Evenson’s book of short stories is not a page turner because the reader will want to savor the words, but a sense of dread permeates his work like Edgar Allan Poe and propels the reader through each story. Each of these gems is different from every other. The topics range from an Orwellian future where individuals are put on life support to ration oxygen, the loss of an eye that still sees, the angel of death, and my favorite, a king’s servant hypnotized by his murderous horse. The one constant is the excellence of the prose and the gap between the real and imagined that leads in a horrific direction. Evenson’s work has been richly praised by Jonathan Lethem and Peter Straub among others. Evenson has also been a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and a winner of the International Horror Guild Award. The reason that he has garnered such acclaim is evident in Windeye. These stories will haunt both your sleeping and waking hours. Highly recommended!

[thealternativeone · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Book Review - Windeye by Brian EvensonWindeyeBrian EvensonTrade Paperback188 pages Advance Reader’s Copy – Uncorrected GalleyPublisher: Coffee House Press Publication date: June 2012 ISBN-13: 978-1566892988Windeye, a new short story collection by noted horror author Brian Evenson, is a thoroughly enjoyable read filled with spine-tingling horror, dark humor, and that just- beneath-the-surface element of doom that every good horror writer tries to capture. Evenson does so and in buckets-full. The terror he invokes, however, is not provoked by a gore-fest or through shock-and-awe. His is a thinking man’s fear. By that I mean there are multiple layers of dread in the majority of stories found in this anthology. The deeper you delve into that mine the darker it will become. You know the writer’s saying “show them don’t tell them”? Evenson shows his readers enough to scare the hell out of them and then pulls back just enough to allow their own imaginations to finish the job. Spooky, creative, and down-right sinister which is, I expect, exactly what he was aiming for.The stand-out stories in the collection are: The Process, Legion, The Sladen Suit, The Absent Eye, Grottor, and Anskan House. A brief description of each story follows. (Note: In my opinion, The Absent Eye, Legion, and The Sladen Suit would have made awesome Twilight Zone or Outer Limits episodes.)In the title story Windeye, a child is stolen, drawn into an unexplained place in a haunted house, and her entire existence erased. If not for the brother who remembers her she would simply be a forgotten footnote in someone else’s reality. The Second Boy is a supernatural tale about a ghost that refuses to let go of life and the story he tells to be repeated round the campfire. In The Process, sometimes the only way to break a political tie in a post-apocalyptic world is to remove someone from the opposition. And, something was made forfeit when humans lost communion with the simple honey bee in the short vignette, A History of the Human Voice. Can it ever be regained? In Dapplegrim when your inheritance is possessed by a demon the very last thing you want to do is piss it off… The Angel of Death follows a company of ghosts awaiting one man to record their names in the book of the dead so that they may rest. In The Dismal Mirror when you make a deal with death you better be prepared to make the final payment. In Legion a robot finds a stray human arm at work one day (how it got there is interesting) and grafts it to a sensor plate. Only then does it discover true consciousness. How long afterwards do you think it takes to learn the difference between power and weakness, master and slave? Legion is a story with a powerfully shocking surprise ending. Murder Inc. has nothing on the Organization. The Moldau Case is a procedural with not one but three murders, one after another upon another. Is The Sladen Suit an entry point to an alternative universe? During a long storm at sea starving sailors discover another world in a Sladen suit. But what lies on the other side?Hurlock's Law – Is Hurlock from an alternative universe? Or, has he just disappeared into one? And why won’t the construct respond?Falling out of time (everything skews out of synch and there’s a Discrepancy in time) can have disastrous side effects.Forensic evidence uncovers the Knowledge that two corpses killed each other. How is it they were found miles apart? Evenson’s clear argument as to why he hasn’t written a detective novel yet.Baby or Doll - Would you question your sanity if you were stuck between alternate worlds? Is The Tunnel a metaphor for the journey into the afterlife? Or is it a supernatural story of fear and trepidation? The Tunnel is a spooky and disconcerting tale.South of the Beast gives new meaning to the term suffering poet. More prose than narrative South of the Beast has the flavor of contemporary poetry while telling a tale of loneliness and agony. Of all the characters in Windeye the tormented poet here may be the one that suffers the most.The Absent Eye is a metaphysical look (pardon the pun) at a physical presence. What if our spirits, our very souls were slightly malignant and sentient in their own right? What if your soul questioned where it went after death and then tried to find out?There is no more humorous story here than Bon Scott: The Choir Years. An enterprising rock journalist discovers secret information outing the late lead singer of AC/DC as a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But did Bon Scott sing in the Mormon Choir and was his death really a horrible accident? Evenson has an interesting take on a very weird conspiracy theory. The really eerie thing about this story is that it rings true.In Tapadera a murdered boy just won’t stop knocking to be let into the house he was thrown out of. Some unusual methods are employed by the killers to keep him out. But getting rid of a living-dead body is not an easy task.A soldier’s ear, lost in a horrific battle, is replaced with The Other Ear of a dead man. Where is that voice coming from? And, why has it lead him to the graveyard?In They a man commissioned to discover who is murdering his client, over and over again, faces an eyeless, faceless opponent.Unable to comprehend the reality of his hallucinatory world a man sets out looking for answers. What do you do when The Oxygen Protocol is initiated and oxygen and water start to run out? If you’re playing it smart you let the machines put you on life support until the situation improves. What if you couldn’t let them do it to you? Would you sacrifice the resources of the group for yourself or would you comply?The Drownable Species – In true tradition of Edgar Allen Poe one man’s hallucinatory search for a missing brother, and the uncommon death’s of his parents, uncovers a sinister evil lurking from within. What if your perceived family were really your victims?Grottor, Lovecraftian in design, gives whole new meaning to the phrase “a wolf in grandmother’s clothing.”At Anskan House be very, very careful what you wish for.4 out of 5 starsRated S for suggestive evil and inevitable chills.The AlternativeSoutheast Wisconsin

[abealy_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is not customary for a house to exhibit more windows on the outside than can be accounted for on the inside. In Windeye, the opening story of this brilliant, disturbing collection by Brian Evanson, that extra window suggests a pointed exit from the ordinary to something unknown and unknowable. Evanson writes masterful gems of characters out of step; disjoined and disjointed; able to view a different plane of reality...a whispy ghost world joined symbiotically in the battlefields of unnamed wars, the stories’ subtle horror nods to Poe, Bradbury and Philip Dick.In tale after tale Evanson looks through the thin veneer of everyday reality to the possibility of something other. Often small ideas are crafted into one page gems that are just odd enough to make us stop...and wonder.