Dead Writers: Stories

Four Canadian writers (Ah-Sen, Michael LaPointe, Cassidy McFadzean, and Naben Ruthnum) come together for a volume of novellas based on one prompt: “a bargain.” The novellas are very different in plot and narrative style but are united by an underlying sense of dread. There’s the haunting tale of a woman hired to write the biography of a complicated author after he dies by suicide, a found historical document about the atrocities carried out against First Nations students at a residential school, the story of a vacation that provides anything but the peace and tranquility its title promises, and a jarringly direct examination of the deal-with-the-devil trope. These novellas contain no jump scares; instead, their horror stems from the sense that something unavoidably uneasy weighs on the bargains the characters are offered. Then consider the anthology’s title alongside the fact that each of the novella’s narrators is a writer themselves, which ratchets the fear up to another level.