ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS: A Folk Horror Storybook, edited by Kier-La Janisse (2024)
★ ★ ★ ★ .75 - a perfectly creepy, dark, & unsettling, beautifully & imaginatively illustrated, collection of diverse folk horror stories from some of my favorite writers…
“‘I love monsters. Maybe love is the wrong word. I respect monsters. Admire them. Something in their monstrosity is so human to me that I can't stay away from them. I watch movies, read books with monstrous characters — some heroes, some villains, some switching sides when it suits them. Because of that, I wanted my own monster. Since I was a little girl. But my parents told me there was no such things as monsters.’”
— from ‘Every Second Saturday, Sea Island Silencers Meet In Secret’, by Eden Royce
title: All the Haunts Be Ours: A Folk Horror Storybook
editor: Kier-La Janisse
authors: Eden Royce, Kim Newman, Cynthia Pelayo, Sarah Gailey, Chandra Mayor, Steve Duffy, Eric Schaller, Erika T Wurth, Yvette Tan, Ramsey Campbell, Cassandra Khaw, & Lynda E Rucker
illustrator: Drazen Kozjan
published: 2024
publisher: Severin
genre: short stories—folk horror
setting: various woods, small villages, cemeteries, & other liminal or imaginary spaces (& one story takes place in Savannah!)
main themes/subjects: folk customs, rituals, & beliefs, monsters (of the self), the power/magic of words, children’s games & nursery rhymes, misophonia, Groundhog Day, wicker-man-esque ritual, matriarchal systems, bog bodies, a marsh witch, Victorian literature (Thoreau, Shelley), haunted house, childhood nightmares, desert setting, albularyo, folk songs, psychopomps, highschool friendship dynamics & family issues (a grandfather with alzheimer’s), memory, appropriation /erasure of Black american culture
representation: Gullah-Geechee (characters & author), queer (m/m) characters, Apache (MC & author), Filipino folklore (& author), multiple trans authors
tropes: secret societies, ghost stories, folk ritual horror, Baba Yaga, vampires, cursed-as-children (Filipino folkore—bati /usog), an arranged marriage into an imperial harem, police investigator POV
summary/blurbs/premise: The assignment given to the writers whose work appears in this “‘Little Golden Book’ of horror stories” was “to create a piece of new short fiction that explores the minutiae of a real folk custom, practice or belief. The proposed emphasis was less on spectacle than the systems of preparation that precede it; those moments of hesitation that reverberate with the uncanny, and eventually make way for terror.” (Kier-La Janisse in the Introduction)
“She thought, this is how people who spot UFOs feel, who know they have encountered something unexplainable. You realize that from that moment on there will be a gulf between you and everyone else that you meet because you cannot unshape your mind around this knowledge that no one will ever believe in.”
— from ‘The Ferryman’, by Lynda E Rucker
my thoughts:
My favorite story was far & away Sarah Gailey’s “We Are Phil”—a gorgeously written wicker-man-esque take on the Groundhog Day ritual featuring some excellent deeper themes about the collective soul—but I also loved Kim Newman’s “Apple Annie’s Fancy” (an excellent follow-up to reading his A Christmas Ghost Story last month), Eric Schaller’s “Matters of the Heart” (because queer Victorian gothic with a cemetery setting & vampire-vibes will always feel like home to me), & Lynda E Rucker’s “The Ferryman” (mostly because it was set in Savannah—although I do think she switched the Savannah River with the Wilmington River for the sake of the story but I didn’t even mind that bc real ones know 😉).
The stories that did not resonate with me were Pelayo’s “I Can Hear You” & Khaw’s “Kindling” which was mostly due to the fact that I don’t usually vibe with those author’s writing / narrative styles.
i would recommend this book to readers who love beautiful books (the object itself is lovely) featuring disturbingly gorgeous illustrations & folk horror stories that are as unsettling as they are stunning. this book is best read snug & safe in your home, by the fire, maybe with at least one light on, & at least one other person home (pets count)—“You know, just in case.” “In case of what? In case of what??”
“Sometimes a good secret is just what you need. A good secret, a clean kitchen, and a sharp knife. ‘You need to be ready,’ she said, looking into the baby's brown eyes. ‘You never know when the feast will commence or the trap will snap.’ Snap! Babette snapped her fingers, and the baby smiled. Everything turns out right in the end, Babette thought, for the thousandth time. One way or another, everyone eventually caught what was coming.”
— from ‘Mortar Pestle Comfort Crumble’, by Chandra Mayor
final note: I read this collection directly after finishing Volume V of the Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories series & couldn’t help but think that Severin would probably make an excellent Christmas edition of folk horror stories… 👀
CW // body horror, violence, domestic abuse, child death, alzheimer’s
season: Dark Season (Mabon → Ostara~Beltane); Sarah Gailey’s story (my favorite of the collection) you gotta read on Groundhog Day 👀
music pairing: the wind in bare trees & dry leaves, bats wings on the air, & the creaking of the cemetery gate…
further reading:
MAN MADE MONSTERS by Andrea L Rogers (2022) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
HAG FORGOTTEN FOLKTALES RETOLD edited by Carolyne Larrington (2020) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
SPOOK LIGHTS: Southern Gothic Horror, by Eden Royce (2015)
SPOOK LIGHTS II: Southern Gothic Horror, by Eden Royce (2017)
MULES AND MEN by Zora Neale Hurston (1935) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
A CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY: A Chilling Tale for Dark Days and Long Nights, by Kim Newman (2024) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
ASK BABA YAGA: Otherworldly Advice for Everyday Troubles, by Taisia Kitaiskaia (2017) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
ASK BABA YAGA II: Poetic Remedies for Troubled Times, by Taisia Kitaiskaia (2020) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
RING SHOUT by P Djèlí Clark (2020) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
THE BUTCHER OF THE FOREST by Premee Mohamed (2024)
WHAT MOVES THE DEAD by T Kingfisher (2022) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ —& the sequel WHAT FEASTS AT NIGHT (2024)
THE HOLLOW PLACES by T Kingfisher (2020)
THE TWISTED ONES by T Kingfisher (2019)
FOLK by Zoe Gilbert (2018)
NEVER WHISTLE AT NIGHT edited by Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Also Jr. (2023) ★ ★ ★ ★ .75
Click on the star ratings beside the titles I’ve read to read my reviews/thoughts about the book.
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“’Have you ever seen the bog bodies, Rachel? Bodies from the iron age, dug out of peat bogs in Ireland and Denmark and the Netherlands? There's one from Lindow Moss in Cheshire - actually two, a man and a woman. The woman was only partly intact, but they found most of her head, complete with the soft tissue: the brain, an eye, some hair. Teeth. The best theory is that the bog bodies were sacrifices, ritual killings in the Celtic enclaves. Perhaps sacrifices were necessary; perhaps those places demanded it. Perhaps they still do.’”
— from ‘The Bricky Pond’, by Steve Duffy
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