Friday, June 7, 2019

Ten deeply unsettling novels

Brian Evenson is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes and has been a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He is also the winner of the International Horror Guild Award and the American Library Association’s award for Best Horror Novel, and his work has been named in Time Out New York’s top books.

His newest book is Song for the Unraveling of the World.

One of Evenson's favorite scary novels, as told to Publishers Weekly:
Ill Will by Dan Chaon

Chaon is one of those authors who never disappoints. Dustin, a psychologist, has an off-kilter patient trying to convince him that a series of drownings are the work of a serial killer. As he reluctantly embarks on an amateur investigation, his ability to distinguish the truth becomes more and more vexed. Add to that Rusty, his adopted brother who was imprisoned for years for killing Dustin’s parents and who is just getting out, and Ill Will becomes a complex and beautifully chilling story about damage caused by the stories we tell ourselves so as not to see how things really are.
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue