All Things Deadly: Salem Stories

DEBUT Adam Frost is driving his daughter Sutton to Salem to visit an old friend and revisit some painful memories. Sutton wants to be anywhere else, and the tension between them is colored by a shared grief. The story of this trip—and of Adam’s and Sutton’s grief—forms the frame for Hanson’s debut collection. The bulk of the stories aren’t connected to the Frosts, but they conjure weird and unsettling worlds where movies drive filmgoers mad, a free couch covers up a terrible secret, a teacher’s last writing assignment reveals a shocking bit of her past, and more. There are interesting ideas here, but they don’t always land. And some of the stories, including one with a gay couple and one with a transgender character, border on trafficking in unfortunate stereotypes. The story of the Frosts, however, is the collection’s real highlight. Their strained father-daughter relationship is nicely drawn, and Hanson finds an authentically moving resolution to their family ghost story.