Time for another bit of accountability— today we’re apologizing to Michael Wehunt and Doug Murano, as Bad Hand Books sent me an e-copy of this and unfortunately the bizarre nature of my work schedule in the past few months also engulfed this. Doug, Michael, I’m sorry. I hope I do this justice
I’ve tried and failed to write this intro over and over again.
It’s not because it’s particularly difficult to describe The Inconsolables by Michael Wehunt, a collection of stories centered around grief, loss, and simply the spaces in ourselves where something is missing. No, the difficulty here is recommending a book, going “if you have ever had the unique experience of being in the same place these stories describe, this book will fuck you up. But you should definitely read it.”
You should definitely read it. Wehunt navigates the horrifying spaces of grief, loss, and depression in a disturbingly genuine way, pairing them with images out of nightmares that perfectly match the idea of something clawing its way into your empty spaces to live. Despite all this, a lot of the stories end up feeling hopeful, or at least end on a note of enough ambiguity that the anguish and dread don’t feel relentless. It’s a collection that perfectly manages the balance of dread, mild optimism, despair, and some truly disturbing, imaginative visions.
The Inconsolables is a book that demands you let it in.
More, as always, below
“Roots only go into the Earth, not away from it.”
There’s an overarching sense of loss and absence to the stories in The Inconsolables. The protagonists have all lost something, are all missing something, and it’s felt. These range from simple losses like an author suffering from writer’s block, to grief at the loss of a loved one, to the horrifying knowledge that everyone you love (hell, everyone in the world) will live on past your death in “An Ending (Ascent).” There’s a component of depression and trauma that everyone knows but no one really talks about, the idea that when you’re changed by something awful happening you can feel the missing piece, that you’d do anything, even awful things, to feel whole again. The Inconsolables is one of the very few books that strikes that tone perfectly.
It’s that sense of the empty space where something left or something’s supposed to be that drives people into odd ritualistic behaviors (“Vampire Fiction,” “Is There Human KIndness Still In The World?”), underscores their motivation to perform unspeakable acts (“The Teeth of America,” “It Takes Small Sips”), and most of all, allows the horrors of The Inconsolables in. The book’s nature abhors a vacuum, and it’s in those places something is missing or something is lost that the long-limbed nightmares, unusual creatures, or murder cults find their way into the protagonists’ hearts. It’s explored in all its myriad forms, from grief over the loss of a loved one to a greater loss of purpose and self-sabotaging ideas.
That loss even extends to the atmosphere of the stories, a kind of unusual quiet that haunts. Not in the sense of lingering dread or lasting images (though there are plenty of those) but in the sense that even in that loneliness, that emptiness, that sense of something missing, there is something still there. In some cases, simply a weight that cannot be moved. In others, something waiting to be let in, looking for a way into that empty space, whether invited or no. Wehunt infuses his stories with a kind of “heavy quiet,” the kind of quiet where there’s no sound, but there’s a presence, something there either waiting to be let in, or waiting to announce itself. When it finally does, it’s terrifying.
Wehunt has a gift for images, whether that’s a flock of mimes like ravens on the roof of a mysterious building, the most grotesque amalgamation of bodies since “In The Hills, The Cities,” or the monsters the recurring shadowy art collective Pine Arch Research Group (“The Pine Arch Collection,” “It Takes Small Sips”) send to torment their victims via digital media. Even without the unnerving black-and-white images provided for the collection by Trevor Henderson (mine didn’t come with these, which was a crying goddamn shame), the twisted, inexplicable, and nightmarish nature of Wehunt’s images are a perfect balance, something stretching and thrusting itself into the empty space in the protagonists’ hearts.
This might all sound like a harrowing experience (and it is at times), but there’s a genuine note that creeps into the stories as The Inconsolables moves along. None of them have exactly happy endings, and it’s better for it, as those would feel grotesque and false against the book’s exploration of darker emotions. But many of the stories end on a note of continuance, of the stories’ central characters able to move on, maybe damaged, but alive. Aware. It’s a message that doesn’t always come through in horror, that the light at the end of the tunnel might be a faint one. Horror endings a fair amount of the time tend to be binary— either catharsis or not, escape or not, positive or negative. The Inconsolables recognizes that this isn’t the case, that it’s rendered a lot more times in shades of gray, good and ill. Not only does it stop the stories from being relentless without dulling the emotional impact, it also gives them a strong element of truth missing in other explorations of these emotions and ideas.
The Inconsolables feels like an easy thing to recommend, a book that wrestles with complex emotions and gives them the treatment they deserve while delivering scares and twisted monsters that perfectly match the moods and discussions present. A collection that haunts and lingers in your brain, the long arms of its horrors stretching across your imagination whenever things are quiet or lonely enough. It’s a recommendation that comes with a caveat. Wehunt is excellent at bringing across feelings of lingering dread, loneliness, and grief. If that doesn’t sound like something you can handle, well, you’re missing out, but it’s understandable.
For everyone else, pick this up immediately. Wehunt’s dropped one of the best collections I’ve read this year, and it’s a brilliant collection full of things waiting just out of view.
All you have to do is invite them in.
