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Bleed into Me: A Book of Stories
We stare at each other because we don't know which tribe, and then nod at the last possible instant. Standard procedure. You pick it up the first time a white friend leads you across a room just to stand you up by another Indian, arrange you like furniture, like you should have something to say to each other.
As one character after another tells it in these stories, much that happens to them does so because "I'm an Indian." And, as Stephen Graham Jones tells it in one remarkable story after another, the life of an Indian in modern America is as rich in irony as it is in tradition. A noted Blackfeet writer, Jones offers a nuanced and often biting look at the lives of Native peoples from the inside. A young Indian mans journey to discover America results in an unsettling understanding of relations between whites and Natives in the twenty-first century, a relationship still fueled by mistrust, stereotypes, and almost casual violence. A character waterproofs his boots with transmission fluid; another steals into Glacier National Park to hunt. One man uses watermelon to draw flies off poached deer; another, in a modern twist on the captivity narrative, kidnaps a white girl in a pickup truck; and a son bleeds into the father carrying him home.
Rife with arresting and poignant images, fleeting and daring in presentation, weighty and provocative in their messages, these stories demonstrate the power of one of the most compelling writers in Native North America today.
As one character after another tells it in these stories, much that happens to them does so because "I'm an Indian." And, as Stephen Graham Jones tells it in one remarkable story after another, the life of an Indian in modern America is as rich in irony as it is in tradition. A noted Blackfeet writer, Jones offers a nuanced and often biting look at the lives of Native peoples from the inside. A young Indian mans journey to discover America results in an unsettling understanding of relations between whites and Natives in the twenty-first century, a relationship still fueled by mistrust, stereotypes, and almost casual violence. A character waterproofs his boots with transmission fluid; another steals into Glacier National Park to hunt. One man uses watermelon to draw flies off poached deer; another, in a modern twist on the captivity narrative, kidnaps a white girl in a pickup truck; and a son bleeds into the father carrying him home.
Rife with arresting and poignant images, fleeting and daring in presentation, weighty and provocative in their messages, these stories demonstrate the power of one of the most compelling writers in Native North America today.
152 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2003
11 people are currently reading
639 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Graham Jones
236 books14.8k followersStephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author thirty-five or so books. He really likes werewolves and slashers. Favorite novels change daily, but Valis and Love Medicine and Lonesome Dove and It and The Things They Carried are all usually up there somewhere. Stephen lives in Boulder, Colorado. It's a big change from the West Texas he grew up in.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 14, 2023
Bleed Into Me is a volume of dark and disturbing short stories. This was not one of my favorite books by Stephen Graham Jones. It was quite difficult to read this collection and I seemed to not like the stories that other readers praised.
My favorite stories in this short story collection include: To Run Without Falling and Filius Nervosus
Favorite Passages:
I clapped my hand over my mouth once, Indian style, then looked up, for my mother, so she could pull the plug, stop all this, but when I opened my mouth again it was just blood and blood and blood. Overheard in group,
December 12, 1998
Halloween
Our father was a man of observances. He would only smoke cigarettes on the Fourth of July, only drink beer on New Year's. His monster mask, though. He wore his monster mask every day of the year.
Venison
Three quiet days later their maggots would hatch in the deer carcasses and the reop men would make Sid blow them off with a hose before they towed the supercab, and the more hardy of the lot would molt in midair, never touch the ground, go out into the world with no memory at all of venison or watermelon, go out into the world unable to even distinguish between the two.
To Run Without Falling
Later, dawn already a smell, we would become magnetic ghosts of ourselves on a security tape as we floated up one aisle of a convenience store and down another, touching the gauze and the disinfectant with sticky fingers, professionally gauging the distance from pharmaceuticals to the front door, the parking lot, our passenger curled in the backseat. It would be too late for first aid, though, and we would be large and obvious in the convex mirror anyway, gravel still in the cuffs of our pants from here, from the dipping action of the wheelchair seesaws we used as catapults, seesaws greased so quiet that we had to make up for it by screaming our presence, that we existed.
________
We rolled through the gravel on the merry-go-round, and the three of them pushed me on it faster and faster until the green beans I'd swallowed whole at dinner became the reaching arms of a spiral galaxy, the delicate tips trailing behind, the rest whipping ponderously ahead, around and around. It turned me inside out.
_______
"I had become as one bored with television."
_______
No kites, no sirens, just our bones creaking as we grew into the men we never thought we'd be, chasing our children across the slick grass of April, the fences melting out of the way, the neighborhood playground yawning before us too soon, the bright new equipment hulking in its bed of gravel.
Bile
Standard procedure. You pick it up the first time a white friend leads you across a room just to stand you up by another Indian, arrange you like furniture, like you should have something to say to each other.
______
I stand guard at the door, drink the beer that appears in my hand, and talk to a fake-blonde girl who's going to grow up someday to be a model for a blow-up doll. Soon enough someone carries her away under his arm and I'm first in line for the bathroom.
"You okay?" I ask Charline through the hollow core, for the people behind me, and the second time the knuckle of my middle finger knocks on the door it swings away form the contact and Charline is composed again, slimming her shirt down her side. She has makeup on now, angry lips and bruised eyes.
I walk in behind her and just stand there int he white light, finally flush for appearances, follow her to the kitchen. The party's already thinning out. Halfway across town my father is dying.
_______
"Start over, Ray," and he does, and it's the fisheye movie, Dad getting money somehow from the ATM machine, or from the people, Raymond's not clear. But he has it. It's tied to the bank of the bank of the river in a length of innertube, knotted at both ends like intestines you cook, a brick pulling it down.
Filius Nervosus
Against a plaid wall I'm invisible form the waist down. I come home with a Slurpee, and over a dinner of mashed potato sandwiches my father tells me that if I ever have to kill anyone, to do it calmly, because if I do it in anger, then a calm me somewhere down the line will feel remorse.
_______
My father does his chucks in the backyard and she makes grocery lists for him, impossible lists that require remote freezer sections on the wrong side of town.
_______
I keep my wishes in the ashtray of my father's car, because nobody smokes anymore.
_______
Friday my father says his secretary's having a garage sale. I know her address, find the ad in the paper. Big block letters: ABORTION GARAGE SALE. Everything must go. No early birds. We get there at seven o'clock and the cars are already lined up. Mostly feminine cars, my dad notes, putting on his aviation shades.
_______
Inside, my mother is still feeding the Lhasa apso we got her on the way back from the garage sale, for and a half pounds of apology. I expect the dog to keel over any moment. Me and my father call it Spaz, try not to notice it the rest of the time.
_______
After dinner each night my father and me stroll out to the backyard and he take week-old cantaloupes from the trunk of his car. He lobs them like a softball at my back, and in a single motion I turn, swing, and the two halves fall to the ground.
It's a beautiful thing.
_______
I pay full price for my Slurpee because I'm a decent person.
But I don't have to.
_______
The day my mother sends my father for seedless yellow-meat-out-of-season watermelon we have to pick him up from jail. She says he's had it coming to him for a long time; he doesn't say anything.
_______
The garage sale remains, the innards of her house smeared all over the lawn. I ask her how she's feeling. She says maybe she shouldn't be talking to me, and I tell her don't worry, it's not a genetic thing, really: I'm not like my dad.
_______
Over egg sandwiches she tells me in raw, clinical terms about the procedure she's had visited upon her, and uses lots of peach-pitting analogies so I can really understand.
_______
. . . when I'm hiding behind the dumpster in our alley hours later I don't know who to blame, my mother for sending my father in search of impossible items, or my father for believing an impossible item could possibly smooth everything over.
Last Success
At night he heard the ghosts of John Paul's parents chasing things across the wooden floor, their long fingers scrabbling after pennies and beer tops and anything shiny.
These Are the Names I know
The beer, the bourbon, the ice falling silently on the cream carpet to melt into a world of diaphanous trees.
_______
"What're you doing?" you ask.
"The frogs," I say.
"The frogs," you say back
In some places they rain down out of the sky. People have recorded this.
You laugh through your nose but still I don't close the door. Instead I stand there between tow worlds and I wait.
Carbon
But that's not where the story ends. That's only where he quits listening.
_______
Time passes, builds up behind us like a dust cloud. I save my nosebleeds in a cup because I'm afraid of the finality of dying. I imagine giving Casy my kidney, my lung, my heart, becoming her, taking her place. Me and her. We lie. We steal. We cheat. Anything to achieve the height we need, to maintain it. We feel guilty for beating a man so we trade for weak cocaine that makes us sick, and we call it justice.
We laugh. All the drugs we did because we were afraid of each other. It's a joke.
Everything.
Like that time we had the freon and our synaptic pathways were so icy slick there was a zero resistance for the current of thought and everything was happening in a silent montage, I remember Casey finger-drawing on a table and whispering to me like it was a secret that we were the Kite People, that we weren't supposed to ever come down, that we were together up here forever, in the sky-blue clouds with silver mercury lining, up here where nothing could touch us.
I think it was love.
My noseblood in the cup has been trying to coagulate into a scab lately, and when it finally does I'm going to leave it in a tidepool somewhere (wherever the oceans are), so at least some of me can have another chance.
My favorite stories in this short story collection include: To Run Without Falling and Filius Nervosus
Favorite Passages:
I clapped my hand over my mouth once, Indian style, then looked up, for my mother, so she could pull the plug, stop all this, but when I opened my mouth again it was just blood and blood and blood. Overheard in group,
December 12, 1998
Halloween
Our father was a man of observances. He would only smoke cigarettes on the Fourth of July, only drink beer on New Year's. His monster mask, though. He wore his monster mask every day of the year.
Venison
Three quiet days later their maggots would hatch in the deer carcasses and the reop men would make Sid blow them off with a hose before they towed the supercab, and the more hardy of the lot would molt in midair, never touch the ground, go out into the world with no memory at all of venison or watermelon, go out into the world unable to even distinguish between the two.
To Run Without Falling
Later, dawn already a smell, we would become magnetic ghosts of ourselves on a security tape as we floated up one aisle of a convenience store and down another, touching the gauze and the disinfectant with sticky fingers, professionally gauging the distance from pharmaceuticals to the front door, the parking lot, our passenger curled in the backseat. It would be too late for first aid, though, and we would be large and obvious in the convex mirror anyway, gravel still in the cuffs of our pants from here, from the dipping action of the wheelchair seesaws we used as catapults, seesaws greased so quiet that we had to make up for it by screaming our presence, that we existed.
________
We rolled through the gravel on the merry-go-round, and the three of them pushed me on it faster and faster until the green beans I'd swallowed whole at dinner became the reaching arms of a spiral galaxy, the delicate tips trailing behind, the rest whipping ponderously ahead, around and around. It turned me inside out.
_______
"I had become as one bored with television."
_______
No kites, no sirens, just our bones creaking as we grew into the men we never thought we'd be, chasing our children across the slick grass of April, the fences melting out of the way, the neighborhood playground yawning before us too soon, the bright new equipment hulking in its bed of gravel.
Bile
Standard procedure. You pick it up the first time a white friend leads you across a room just to stand you up by another Indian, arrange you like furniture, like you should have something to say to each other.
______
I stand guard at the door, drink the beer that appears in my hand, and talk to a fake-blonde girl who's going to grow up someday to be a model for a blow-up doll. Soon enough someone carries her away under his arm and I'm first in line for the bathroom.
"You okay?" I ask Charline through the hollow core, for the people behind me, and the second time the knuckle of my middle finger knocks on the door it swings away form the contact and Charline is composed again, slimming her shirt down her side. She has makeup on now, angry lips and bruised eyes.
I walk in behind her and just stand there int he white light, finally flush for appearances, follow her to the kitchen. The party's already thinning out. Halfway across town my father is dying.
_______
"Start over, Ray," and he does, and it's the fisheye movie, Dad getting money somehow from the ATM machine, or from the people, Raymond's not clear. But he has it. It's tied to the bank of the bank of the river in a length of innertube, knotted at both ends like intestines you cook, a brick pulling it down.
Filius Nervosus
Against a plaid wall I'm invisible form the waist down. I come home with a Slurpee, and over a dinner of mashed potato sandwiches my father tells me that if I ever have to kill anyone, to do it calmly, because if I do it in anger, then a calm me somewhere down the line will feel remorse.
_______
My father does his chucks in the backyard and she makes grocery lists for him, impossible lists that require remote freezer sections on the wrong side of town.
_______
I keep my wishes in the ashtray of my father's car, because nobody smokes anymore.
_______
Friday my father says his secretary's having a garage sale. I know her address, find the ad in the paper. Big block letters: ABORTION GARAGE SALE. Everything must go. No early birds. We get there at seven o'clock and the cars are already lined up. Mostly feminine cars, my dad notes, putting on his aviation shades.
_______
Inside, my mother is still feeding the Lhasa apso we got her on the way back from the garage sale, for and a half pounds of apology. I expect the dog to keel over any moment. Me and my father call it Spaz, try not to notice it the rest of the time.
_______
After dinner each night my father and me stroll out to the backyard and he take week-old cantaloupes from the trunk of his car. He lobs them like a softball at my back, and in a single motion I turn, swing, and the two halves fall to the ground.
It's a beautiful thing.
_______
I pay full price for my Slurpee because I'm a decent person.
But I don't have to.
_______
The day my mother sends my father for seedless yellow-meat-out-of-season watermelon we have to pick him up from jail. She says he's had it coming to him for a long time; he doesn't say anything.
_______
The garage sale remains, the innards of her house smeared all over the lawn. I ask her how she's feeling. She says maybe she shouldn't be talking to me, and I tell her don't worry, it's not a genetic thing, really: I'm not like my dad.
_______
Over egg sandwiches she tells me in raw, clinical terms about the procedure she's had visited upon her, and uses lots of peach-pitting analogies so I can really understand.
_______
. . . when I'm hiding behind the dumpster in our alley hours later I don't know who to blame, my mother for sending my father in search of impossible items, or my father for believing an impossible item could possibly smooth everything over.
Last Success
At night he heard the ghosts of John Paul's parents chasing things across the wooden floor, their long fingers scrabbling after pennies and beer tops and anything shiny.
These Are the Names I know
The beer, the bourbon, the ice falling silently on the cream carpet to melt into a world of diaphanous trees.
_______
"What're you doing?" you ask.
"The frogs," I say.
"The frogs," you say back
In some places they rain down out of the sky. People have recorded this.
You laugh through your nose but still I don't close the door. Instead I stand there between tow worlds and I wait.
Carbon
But that's not where the story ends. That's only where he quits listening.
_______
Time passes, builds up behind us like a dust cloud. I save my nosebleeds in a cup because I'm afraid of the finality of dying. I imagine giving Casy my kidney, my lung, my heart, becoming her, taking her place. Me and her. We lie. We steal. We cheat. Anything to achieve the height we need, to maintain it. We feel guilty for beating a man so we trade for weak cocaine that makes us sick, and we call it justice.
We laugh. All the drugs we did because we were afraid of each other. It's a joke.
Everything.
Like that time we had the freon and our synaptic pathways were so icy slick there was a zero resistance for the current of thought and everything was happening in a silent montage, I remember Casey finger-drawing on a table and whispering to me like it was a secret that we were the Kite People, that we weren't supposed to ever come down, that we were together up here forever, in the sky-blue clouds with silver mercury lining, up here where nothing could touch us.
I think it was love.
My noseblood in the cup has been trying to coagulate into a scab lately, and when it finally does I'm going to leave it in a tidepool somewhere (wherever the oceans are), so at least some of me can have another chance.
January 21, 2022
It's interesting to jump back to the beginning of Jones' publications. The style is still very much what I would expect, but it's fascinating to see how he started from a literary position and then moved his way into genre fiction. Even as I was reading The Only Good Indians, I had the feeling that it was more literary than genre, and now I understand why.
I've not read any other writer like Jones. He has a knack for finding the perfect moment, the perfect small detail to emphasize in the story to make a point, to emphasize mood, or to fill atmosphere. It's amazing stuff. Even though I can't say I got the point of every story here, I could feel them and experience them.
"Discovering America" is easily my favorite of the bunch. I follow Jones on Twitter and that side of him feels playful and a little carefree, but that story takes a sideways, acerbic look at stereotypes. It's harsh and unforgiving, and I LOVE IT.
I've not read any other writer like Jones. He has a knack for finding the perfect moment, the perfect small detail to emphasize in the story to make a point, to emphasize mood, or to fill atmosphere. It's amazing stuff. Even though I can't say I got the point of every story here, I could feel them and experience them.
"Discovering America" is easily my favorite of the bunch. I follow Jones on Twitter and that side of him feels playful and a little carefree, but that story takes a sideways, acerbic look at stereotypes. It's harsh and unforgiving, and I LOVE IT.
April 2, 2025
Phenomenal stuff. I really enjoy this era of SGJ’s work. Without the horror, it feels so authentic and raw in a way that challenges my brain. It also leads with emotion and hits those notes hard. These stories are awesome individually but they really come together to form something special. Highly recommend.
August 5, 2017
In these stories, SGJ absolutely convinces me that I'm reading not just an episode in a life, not just a situation that's some part of a larger life that balloons off the page in ways we can't see or really know, but the contours of the life itself. This IS the character's life; this IS what it's like to be him or her. The way he does this is, I think, unerring and often unsettling, especially when characters slowly awaken into claustrophobia and still think that there's a way out. I was still thinking that too. . . . SGJ just nails it when it comes to knowing which moments, which details, which gestures and breaths and things said and unsaid give us these lives.
October 16, 2010
Beautiful stuff, spanning topics both on and off the reservation, mostly youthful indiscretions, mischief, getting high, inherited sins, etc. with tragic consequences. Standout tales include "Carbon," "Filius Nervosus," and "Bile."
As usual with his more literary fare, Jones makes the reader work to participate, as he jumps right into his stories like you're the last of your friends to get picked up in the van headed to the party (or hospital or hunting trip) while everyone else is already three beers down regaling you with snippets that get you up to speed mere seconds before the crash.
As usual with his more literary fare, Jones makes the reader work to participate, as he jumps right into his stories like you're the last of your friends to get picked up in the van headed to the party (or hospital or hunting trip) while everyone else is already three beers down regaling you with snippets that get you up to speed mere seconds before the crash.
April 22, 2017
This came as a great surprise. The stories are sometimes opaque but are, at all times, poetic. The only stories I've read that are in any way comparable to these are Barthelme's. My one gripe is the book's fault, not the text's: sans-serif font. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in contemporary experimental short fiction.
June 16, 2020
3.5 stars for me!
I'm a big fan of Stephen Graham Jones and this was an interesting collection because it's the first work of his I've read that isnt horror. I did enjoy this one and I thought some of the stories were great, my favourites being "Nobody Knows This", "Carbon", "Last Success" and the title story. The only reason I didn't give this a higher grade is because I found a few of the stories a little too vague and beyond my understanding. Or maybe it's just me? And I did prefer After The People Lights Have Gone Off as far as collections go. Without further ado, let's dig into the individual stories.
Halloween- Really liked this one, short, succinct and a great way to kick things off. Also really liked the title and how it referenced the father in this story wearing a monster mask. 4/5
Venison- This one I thought was pretty good but didn't stick out to me as one of the best in the collection. Still good though. 3/5
Captivity Narrative 109- This one I liked a lot, pretty tense and the character Aiche was quite interesting. One of the best here. 4/5
To Run Without Falling- This one I thought was pretty sad but moving and powerful as well. Stuck out to me as one I enjoyed and will remember. 4/5
Episode 43:Incest- This one went right over my head and because of that is my least favorite here. 1/5
Nobody Knows This- Now that's what I'm talking about! This was my favourite of the whole collection and one of my favourite stories from SGJ. Great story, great atmosphere and a shocking ending that I didn't see coming. 5/5
Bile- Quite a sad story here, but very powerful and effective. One of the best I think. 4/5
Filius Nervosus- Another shocking ending and an engaging narrative with little breaks in between passages. Found it slightly confusing at first, but I think I got it eventually. 3.5/5
Last Success- Buffaloes!! Liked this one a lot, probably the most intriguing narrative in this collection as one of the characters has a skull fracture and his fragmented thoughts were interesting to read. One of my favourites here. 5/5
Conquistadors- Short, choppy, fun story with some cool imagery. 3/5
These Are The Names I Know- Really interesting layout for this one, there are different headings like A Mouse, A Frog etc and it would relate to the characters in the story in some way. One of the best here. 4/5
The Fear of Jumping- I found this story quite haunting in its depiction of a depressed character and the ending is quite heartbreaking. Powerful stuff. 4/5
Bleed into Me- Loved the atmosphere in this one and how you saw the perspective of every family member relating to a past tragic event. Also found this quite haunting and this will stick with you. 5/5
Carbon- One of my favourites here, a tragic tale of two lovers who are addicts and the way their relationship disintegrates is utterly heartbreaking. 5/5
Every Night was Halloween- Not 100% sure that I got this one, but I found it very interesting nonetheless and I loved the different character perspectives. 3.5/5
Discovering America- I liked this one, a good way to close out the collection and a poignant message to reflect on. 3.5/5
Overall, while this isnt my favourite work by SGJ, it's still a very good read and his writing is excellent as always. It's also cool to read his earlier work and see how hes progressed through the years. Definitely recommended to fans of SGJ or anyone for that matter! This could be a great place to start if you havent read SGJ before as it is his first short story collection.
I'm a big fan of Stephen Graham Jones and this was an interesting collection because it's the first work of his I've read that isnt horror. I did enjoy this one and I thought some of the stories were great, my favourites being "Nobody Knows This", "Carbon", "Last Success" and the title story. The only reason I didn't give this a higher grade is because I found a few of the stories a little too vague and beyond my understanding. Or maybe it's just me? And I did prefer After The People Lights Have Gone Off as far as collections go. Without further ado, let's dig into the individual stories.
Halloween- Really liked this one, short, succinct and a great way to kick things off. Also really liked the title and how it referenced the father in this story wearing a monster mask. 4/5
Venison- This one I thought was pretty good but didn't stick out to me as one of the best in the collection. Still good though. 3/5
Captivity Narrative 109- This one I liked a lot, pretty tense and the character Aiche was quite interesting. One of the best here. 4/5
To Run Without Falling- This one I thought was pretty sad but moving and powerful as well. Stuck out to me as one I enjoyed and will remember. 4/5
Episode 43:Incest- This one went right over my head and because of that is my least favorite here. 1/5
Nobody Knows This- Now that's what I'm talking about! This was my favourite of the whole collection and one of my favourite stories from SGJ. Great story, great atmosphere and a shocking ending that I didn't see coming. 5/5
Bile- Quite a sad story here, but very powerful and effective. One of the best I think. 4/5
Filius Nervosus- Another shocking ending and an engaging narrative with little breaks in between passages. Found it slightly confusing at first, but I think I got it eventually. 3.5/5
Last Success- Buffaloes!! Liked this one a lot, probably the most intriguing narrative in this collection as one of the characters has a skull fracture and his fragmented thoughts were interesting to read. One of my favourites here. 5/5
Conquistadors- Short, choppy, fun story with some cool imagery. 3/5
These Are The Names I Know- Really interesting layout for this one, there are different headings like A Mouse, A Frog etc and it would relate to the characters in the story in some way. One of the best here. 4/5
The Fear of Jumping- I found this story quite haunting in its depiction of a depressed character and the ending is quite heartbreaking. Powerful stuff. 4/5
Bleed into Me- Loved the atmosphere in this one and how you saw the perspective of every family member relating to a past tragic event. Also found this quite haunting and this will stick with you. 5/5
Carbon- One of my favourites here, a tragic tale of two lovers who are addicts and the way their relationship disintegrates is utterly heartbreaking. 5/5
Every Night was Halloween- Not 100% sure that I got this one, but I found it very interesting nonetheless and I loved the different character perspectives. 3.5/5
Discovering America- I liked this one, a good way to close out the collection and a poignant message to reflect on. 3.5/5
Overall, while this isnt my favourite work by SGJ, it's still a very good read and his writing is excellent as always. It's also cool to read his earlier work and see how hes progressed through the years. Definitely recommended to fans of SGJ or anyone for that matter! This could be a great place to start if you havent read SGJ before as it is his first short story collection.
August 15, 2021
This early collection of stories by Blackfeet author Stephen Graham Jones reads less like a series of narratives and more like tiny glimpses into the failed lives, broken families, incestuous relationships, disease ravaged bodies, and stillborn animals on display. There is a nigh unbreakable line between the failure and death of parents and the failure and death of their children, a web of condemnation that stretches the whole length of the native community and then some.
The story structures are fragmented and obtuse and just as dank and fetid as the chunks of deer meat that characters often leave rotting in the backs of their trucks. While this style of writing can be confusing and a bit off putting, it does also lend itself to enhanced emotional impacts. There are times when the slow realization of whatever horror has just happened lands much harder because the writing forces readers to put the clues in place for themselves.
The title story exemplifies many of the collection’s overall traits. It revolves around a devastated family trying to move on after the death of their son. Beginning with his brother, it cycles on to the mother who is psychologically damaged enough to believe her dead son is now haunting her and then onto the father who can no longer keep down a job and may be inadvertently causing his wife’s delusions.
I can’t say I loved these stories, but they are quite unique. If you’re looking for a solid read that will depress the hell out of you, look no further.
The story structures are fragmented and obtuse and just as dank and fetid as the chunks of deer meat that characters often leave rotting in the backs of their trucks. While this style of writing can be confusing and a bit off putting, it does also lend itself to enhanced emotional impacts. There are times when the slow realization of whatever horror has just happened lands much harder because the writing forces readers to put the clues in place for themselves.
The title story exemplifies many of the collection’s overall traits. It revolves around a devastated family trying to move on after the death of their son. Beginning with his brother, it cycles on to the mother who is psychologically damaged enough to believe her dead son is now haunting her and then onto the father who can no longer keep down a job and may be inadvertently causing his wife’s delusions.
I can’t say I loved these stories, but they are quite unique. If you’re looking for a solid read that will depress the hell out of you, look no further.
July 13, 2022
There are glimpses in this 2005 collection of short stories of the excellent and confident writer Stephen Graham Jones would eventually become with novels like The Only Good Indians and Mongrels, but they're just a little too few and far between. Some of the stories are compelling but there's a definite "MFA writing program" feel to this -- too much of a premium placed on opaque storytelling and finding the most convoluted and indirect way to describe simple things. For SGJ fans, this is still a worthwhile, if somewhat frustrating, read.
August 14, 2012
A collection of short stories centering around contemporary American Indians (it is part of a series entitled Native Storiers: A series of American Narratives), struggling with their own sense of identity with frequently violent or potentially explosive results, often because of mistrust. Despite their brevity, these are stories that demand a lot of their readers and are often unsettling, but also very rewarding.
May 14, 2015
The writing in these stories is unique. It's also spellbinding. The language just reaches out of the pages and grabs you in unexpected places during the stories. In almost every story there was a moment of "hold on...did I just read that?" and have to go back and re-read that section. That might be a negative point to some people, but the not for me...at least in the context of this collection. This was a very interesting read.
January 3, 2016
No offense, but I think one needs to be smokin what the author was in order to follow what he's trying to say....maybe it was just me, but I could not make much sense of these stories.
August 27, 2020
Chilling, beautiful, shape-shifting, mind-expanding.
March 2, 2024
While this was definitely not my favorite SJG (and not even my favorite SJG short story collection), I appreciate it for what it menas as one of his earlier works. There are things about these stories that are very wonderful; they have horrific elements without being explicitly "horror" but rather detail how life as an Indian means dealing with every day horrors. This story collection is much more "literary" than his other books I've read, and at times that was really kind of cool but at other times was too extra for me.
My favorite story was the titular one of "Bleed into Me." But unfortunately the very best line of the whole book came during the prologue, and as I was reading I remember specifically thinking "holy smokes how in the world can be top that?" (and he doesn't but that's because this line is so so good and just set the bar too high): "I clapped my hand over my mouth once, Indian style, then looked up, for my mother, so she could pull the plug, stop all this, but when I opened my mouth again it was just blood and blood and blood"
My favorite story was the titular one of "Bleed into Me." But unfortunately the very best line of the whole book came during the prologue, and as I was reading I remember specifically thinking "holy smokes how in the world can be top that?" (and he doesn't but that's because this line is so so good and just set the bar too high): "I clapped my hand over my mouth once, Indian style, then looked up, for my mother, so she could pull the plug, stop all this, but when I opened my mouth again it was just blood and blood and blood"
November 23, 2024
Sometimes I lose the plot, but these stories are about people who feel like they don’t fit in and are always fighting for or against something, and getting worn out with it or energized by it. No platitudes here, just good tale telling.
July 12, 2018
Despite the recommendation from Sherman Alexie, whose stories these resemble, I found them confusing, pointless, and unaffecting.
August 20, 2023
3.75/5
October 8, 2013
Nobody Knows This
Last Success
Carbon
If you read nothing else in this book, let these be the stories you choose. Overall the collection wasn't my favorite of his work, but these 3 stories blew me away!
Last Success
Carbon
If you read nothing else in this book, let these be the stories you choose. Overall the collection wasn't my favorite of his work, but these 3 stories blew me away!
August 8, 2007
Dr. Jones, I love this! I think it is by far my favorite.
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