This year, the Spooky Book Club I attend is switching things up. The host decided we could call dibs on a month and pick which book we all read. I chose the flash fiction collection Tiny Nightmares, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto because one entry is by Chavis Woods, an author whose work I’ve enjoyed. I was happy to see some of my other favorites, like horror author, philosopher, and translator Brian Evenson; post-modernist Kevin Brockmeier; and one of my favorite authors from Out There Screaming, a collection of horror by Black authors, Rion Amilcar Scott. We book club members are not required to lead the book club for the book we chose, but I love leading book club meetings, so I took the reins.
While I found reading dozens of flash fiction pieces a challenge because once you finish a story, there isn’t much motivation to pick the book up again, everyone in the group had something to contribute. In fact, having so many fiction pieces to pick from led to a lot of laughs and stories. For instance, asking which works stood out to folks led a new mom in the group to admit she felt bizarre reading “Human Milk for Human Babies” in which two mothers meet online, one in need of breast milk, the other with a surplus. As the story progresses, we realized the mother who needs the milk never has a baby with her. What, exactly, is she feeding?
For me, the stories that worked best added some kind of anticipation. When one small town finds a severed foot (you guys know how I feel about severed feet), and then a leg, a torso, etc., I was wild to get to the head, so the police could identify the victim. Just when we get above the neck, another foot is found. Doh! The author plays with our expectations, creating excitement yet not giving readers what they want.
Other than feeling like it was easy to put the book down because each story is about three pages, I was likely hindered by my role as book club leader. After each story, I wanted to take a few notes, but when you have dozens of three-page stories, notes begin to feel like homework. I wish I could go back in time and read a few stories per day, giving myself more time to ingest them like some heavy dessert — fudge, perhaps.
In general, Tiny Nightmares further confirmed my feelings about the purpose of horror, which is to have us face what is real in a safe space: fiction. There were stories about climate change, undocumented immigrants on their journey from Mexico to the U.S., police violence against the Black community, the dangers of meeting strangers on dating apps, and domestic dissatisfaction. Only a handful of flash fiction pieces didn’t make sense to me, which is small given the 259 pages. Also, the editors wisely chose from a variety of cultures. If you look at the authors’ names, you see Chakraborty, Nguyen, Narvaez, Heng, etc. Overall, an interesting little snack of a book that makes for great conversation with a group of readers.
Grab the Lapels 
Fudge seems like an apt metaphor for how you wanted to take in these stories!
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Also, I might have eaten some fudge recently, lol.
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This actually sounds really interesting. I feel like maybe I could handle some horror in tiny doses like this! I recognize a few names and I’ve read Chavisa Woods book 100 Times.
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I know it was available at my library on Hoopla. I’m not sure if you have that in Canada, or if you have access to the same books there. I love Chavisa Woods’s novel The Albino Album. It is so bizarre and yet rooted in travel stories that have a rootless protagonist who just goes into scene after scene, and each one is awesome. Woods used to have a Facebook profile picture of her lighting a cigarette with an American flag on fire.
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I’ve never heard of Hoopla but it looks like we do have it in Canada. Woods’ work seems bizarre in very appealing ways. Your description of her profile pic got me thinking that although it’s not illegal to deface a Canadian flag, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of someone burning one. Maybe because it’s not provocative in the same way as what you’re describing? I feel like seeing someone with that profile gives me a very good sense of who they are!
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We’re totally nuts over the American flag here, so for somebody to burn it or let it touch the ground or be up overnight is supposed to be a big huge deal. I think out of sheer laziness we’ve let the whole leave the flag up all night thing go, but burning it is still a giant no.
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That’s something I always notice as soon as I cross the border into the States – way more flags. I didn’t realize you weren’t supposed to leave it out overnight. Is that true even if you’re just flying it in front of your house? That seems like a lot of work. I think the time Canadians are proudest of our flag is when we’re travelling overseas and we put the maple leaf on ourselves somewhere so people know we’re not Americans!
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If you leave the flag out over night, it’s supposed to have a light on it.
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That’s so interesting. I can’t find that we have any similar protocol for the Canadian flag. I’m curious how these types of things develop for a nation.
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This sounds like the sort of horror I might like to read… I love that you chose flash fiction … I agree that those sorts of books can work well in a reading group. Now, sorry, it’s off to breakfast before another day in the road!
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I love that you’re having a hobbit-y adventure, Sue! When I was in grad school in Michigan, I had a professor who had published something like 200 flash fiction stories, so I’m quite familiar with them. One of the first questions I asked my book club is if they knew flash fiction, too. Surprisingly, they all did.
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This sounds fun!!! Lots of little stories would definitely make for a colourful group chat. The idea of someone buying human breast milk for themselves, or another adult actually isn’t that freaky to me. There’s lots of nutrients in there. It’s sort of a gross idea, but if it will heal my gut or make me younger looking, I’ll drink just about anything! haha
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OMG, Anne, the things I learn about you, LOL. I think the story implies that this woman was buying breast milk for some kind of voracious creature drinking all the milk, but we’ll never know….
These same editors also have two other collections of flash fiction. One I think is more crime? Different genres, anyway.
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