Review: 'American Midnight: Tales of the Dark' selected by Laird Hunt

I love a good and scary short story collection, especially when it contains stories I have not read before. As such, I delighted in American Midnight, even if I'm not sure on the selection of stories. Thanks to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My sincere apologies for the delay.

Pub. Date: 31/8/2021
Publisher: Pushkin Press

A chilling collection of classic weird and supernatural tales from the dark heart of American literature

A masquerade ball cut short by a mysterious plague; a strange nocturnal ritual in the woods; a black bobcat howling in the night: these ten tales are some of the most strange and unsettling in all of American literature, filled with unforgettable imagery and simmering with tension. From Edgar Allan Poe to Shirley Jackson, Nathaniel Hawthorne to Zora Neale Hurston, the authors of these classics of supernatural suspense have inspired generations of writers to explore the dark heart of the land of the free.

The stories in this collection have been selected and introduced by Laird Hunt, an author of seven acclaimed novels which explore the shadowy corners of American history.

The collection features nine stories which I greatly enjoyed. "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe is sumptuous, if brief, and remains a lovely indictment of the rich. "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne was new to me and once I was used to the old-school writing, I was intrigued at its discussion of good and evil, hypocrisy, and religion. I also hadn't read "The Eyes" by Edith Wharton before. It is a lot calmer, in a way, than the preceding story, as it starts in the traditional "let's gather round the fire and tell ghost tales"-atmosphere, but it is also a little more psychological. "The Mask" by Robert Chambers is a story I didn't really get to begin with. I'm still not sure I fully see what its doing, but it was sumptuous and delightfully dramatic. Meanwhile, Shirley Jackson was a genius and "Home" is a perfect example of why she is still so acclaimed. Featuring the horror of being new in a close-knit community, the horror of ghosts, and the horror of being slightly annoying, I enjoyed it very much. "A Ghost Story" by Mark Twain, meanwhile, has everything one might enjoy about a poltergeist and yet is also absurdly funny. Zora Neale Hurston's "Spunk" is a story of paranormal revenge, of getting what's due, and I enjoyed it very much. "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a classic for a reason and its ending continues to haunt me. It is also the most psychologically direct story in the collection and its inclusion intrigues me. The final story, "An Itinerant House" by Emma Frances Dawson absolutely gripped me in the beginning and I love its concept. It lost me a little in the middle, but its structure had me right back on the edge of my seat by the end.

I am intrigued by this collection's centering of the dark, both in the title and its tagline above. On the one hand I believe they were curated because of their authors' places in American literature. Many of these authors are institutions in and of themselves and the stories selected here among their best. But it is midnight and darkness which echo through them all. Some engage with a Christian sense of darkness, i.e., the Devil and the opposite of all things good and pure, while others centre on a more personal sense of darkness. The latter intrigue me most, how these stories engage with personal and moral failings, with the fears we hide. Overall, the stories are curated in such a way that they build on one another nicely, creating a sense of ever-changing and moveable dread. 

I give this collection...

4 Universes!

As with every collection, not every story will resonate with every reader, but for anyone intrigued by the dark at the heart of American literature, this is the right place to start!