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Tell Me When I Disappear: Vanishing Stories
From Glen Hirshberg, Shirley Jackson- and International Horror Guild Award-winning author of Infinity Dreams and the Motherless Children trilogy, comes a collection suffused with creeping dread about what’s being lost. And what that will cost. And what just might be circling back for
In a decaying northern California fishing town, the last locals attempt to save a vengeful widow from herself as yet another storm bears down. But this storm is bringing something worse than waves or wind...
In the Tasmanian wilderness, two travel guides and former lovers discover that wildness, and memories of wildness, still have teeth...
Along the southern coast of Rhode Island, a woman in search of an old friend discovers just how frayed the threads that unite the states have become...
In the meth-haunted wastelands north of Los Angeles, a mother camps on the driveway of a drug kingpin’s dilapidated mansion. She’s there to save her estranged daughter. But older dangers are bubbling out of the drought-raved Earth beneath her feet...
Atmospheric, elegiac, and—oh, yes—scary, here are seven tales about people confronting what people have wrought. And a few other things people had nothing to do with...
"The seven haunting stories in this new collection from Shirley Jackson Award winner Hirshberg (Infinity Dreams) all circle horrors that, though sketched obliquely, still evoke powerful chills. These dark flights of fancy impress. " - Publisher's Weekly Starred Review
"Packed with slow-burn terror and dealing with deep questions, these stories will stay with readers." - Library Journal
In a decaying northern California fishing town, the last locals attempt to save a vengeful widow from herself as yet another storm bears down. But this storm is bringing something worse than waves or wind...
In the Tasmanian wilderness, two travel guides and former lovers discover that wildness, and memories of wildness, still have teeth...
Along the southern coast of Rhode Island, a woman in search of an old friend discovers just how frayed the threads that unite the states have become...
In the meth-haunted wastelands north of Los Angeles, a mother camps on the driveway of a drug kingpin’s dilapidated mansion. She’s there to save her estranged daughter. But older dangers are bubbling out of the drought-raved Earth beneath her feet...
Atmospheric, elegiac, and—oh, yes—scary, here are seven tales about people confronting what people have wrought. And a few other things people had nothing to do with...
"The seven haunting stories in this new collection from Shirley Jackson Award winner Hirshberg (Infinity Dreams) all circle horrors that, though sketched obliquely, still evoke powerful chills. These dark flights of fancy impress. " - Publisher's Weekly Starred Review
"Packed with slow-burn terror and dealing with deep questions, these stories will stay with readers." - Library Journal
- GenresHorror
154 pages, Paperback
Published February 9, 2023
About the author
Glen Hirshberg
95 books152 followersThree-time International Horror Guild Award Winner Glen Hirshberg’s novels include The Snowman's Children, The Book of Bunk, the Motherless Children trilogy, and Infinity Dreams. He is also the author of four widely praised story collections: The Two Sams, American Morons, The Janus Tree, and The Ones Who Are Waving. A five-time World Fantasy Award finalist, he has won the Shirley Jackson Award for the novelette, “The Janus Tree”. He also publishes new fiction, critical writing, and creative nonfiction in his Substack newsletter, Happy in Our Own Ways (https://glenhirshberg.substack.com/), and offers classes and manuscript coaching and editing through his Drones Club West activities (dronesclubwest@outlook.com). He lives with his family and cats in the Pacific Northwest.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 7, 2023
Glen Hirschberg's game seems to be 'literary horror,' and he excels in it. His new short story collection offers seven stories, revolving around the theme of loss and disappearance. The variety in settings and characters is simply astounding. There's so much variation in tone, dialogue, and style, I forgot I was reading horror and was simply following the author wherever he'd take me. The dialogue, the vocabulary and the near poetic prose sometimes proved overwhelming; this is, after all, top quality storytelling. Ghost trains, evil tsunamis, haunted malls, creepy forests, monstrous pools; there's so much originality here, so much genuine horror, it enhances the reader's ability to feel, reminiscence and imagine. An essential short story collection for anyone who enjoys masterful horror storytelling!
March 23, 2023
“How much more peaceful and comfortable our friends look in the glowing little fish-tanks of our phones. They hardly even need feeding.”
These stories are written in a way that conjure up instinctual feelings, it’s not fight or flight, but that moment just before the adrenaline dump. Whether in the pit of your stomach or by the hairs on your neck, they give you that sensation you get when you feel like you’re being watched. The stories come across as light and wispy but you know you are standing on the precipice.
What you have here is powerful storytelling filled with anticipatory tension. You are being lead on, giving you a desire to know what the characters are hinting at. It is haunting.
“Died trying. Best epitaph she could hope for.”
These stories are written in a way that conjure up instinctual feelings, it’s not fight or flight, but that moment just before the adrenaline dump. Whether in the pit of your stomach or by the hairs on your neck, they give you that sensation you get when you feel like you’re being watched. The stories come across as light and wispy but you know you are standing on the precipice.
What you have here is powerful storytelling filled with anticipatory tension. You are being lead on, giving you a desire to know what the characters are hinting at. It is haunting.
“Died trying. Best epitaph she could hope for.”
May 2, 2023
Hirshberg's high-brow horror collection is a thing of beauty, love, and loss. It probes loneliness in quiet, painful ways. It's told in an accessibly voice and tone, and this is the horror book to give people who claim they don't like horror. It's wonderful.
February 18, 2026
Another excellent short story collection from Glen Hirshberg, one of the current best writers of dark fiction.
In “Black Leg” a documentary filmmaker and ghost hunter is told a story by a fellow member of a prospective jury pool, and later tries to track the guy down. He is not totally successful in this, but does manage quite a scare when he visits the supposedly haunted spot the other fellow described to him.
“Devil,” in which this reader is given more reasons (mysterious shrieks at night, ghost trains, and “drop bears”) to never visit Australia. I’m sure it’s a beautiful place, and something everyone should probably see—but at this point I’ve taken in too many movies and read too many stories where Americans go to check out the enormous continent, only to return home, if they’re so lucky, with heads full to brimming with scary shit.
“Jetty Sara,” about pirates, and a woman who mourns the loss of her villainous old boyfriend who was washed to see when a storm hit town some time ago.
“Slough,” set in Rhode Island, a watery, doom-filled story about an old, slave-built house full of clocks.
“DestinationLand,” my favorite story in the book, about an old trainyard sitting on the site of a Japanese WWII internment camp, turned into a child’s play area. The narrator works there during the day, alongside his aunt, and each day the train conductor appears before closing and gives the little toy train a final drive, with no one on board, part of a tradition. But this time, the man spots a little girl hiding on the train as it starts up that last ride of the day, and he runs to join her, and finds out a bit more about where this particular train goes and who its mostly silent passengers are, and perhaps who he has become . . .
“A Paradise to Live In or See,” a woman camps out front of her daughter’s fenced-in trailer home, pleading with her to leave her gross boyfriend and return to the land of the living. Suddenly police open fire and she’s over the fence, trying to find her possibly wounded daughter and also steer clear of a foul, debris- and garbage-littered pool.
“Tell Me When I Disappear,” a spooky story about a high school camping trip; loud noises, startling, getting everyone up and out of their tents; something attacking but not anything one can see with eyes . . .
In “Black Leg” a documentary filmmaker and ghost hunter is told a story by a fellow member of a prospective jury pool, and later tries to track the guy down. He is not totally successful in this, but does manage quite a scare when he visits the supposedly haunted spot the other fellow described to him.
“Devil,” in which this reader is given more reasons (mysterious shrieks at night, ghost trains, and “drop bears”) to never visit Australia. I’m sure it’s a beautiful place, and something everyone should probably see—but at this point I’ve taken in too many movies and read too many stories where Americans go to check out the enormous continent, only to return home, if they’re so lucky, with heads full to brimming with scary shit.
“Jetty Sara,” about pirates, and a woman who mourns the loss of her villainous old boyfriend who was washed to see when a storm hit town some time ago.
“Slough,” set in Rhode Island, a watery, doom-filled story about an old, slave-built house full of clocks.
“DestinationLand,” my favorite story in the book, about an old trainyard sitting on the site of a Japanese WWII internment camp, turned into a child’s play area. The narrator works there during the day, alongside his aunt, and each day the train conductor appears before closing and gives the little toy train a final drive, with no one on board, part of a tradition. But this time, the man spots a little girl hiding on the train as it starts up that last ride of the day, and he runs to join her, and finds out a bit more about where this particular train goes and who its mostly silent passengers are, and perhaps who he has become . . .
“A Paradise to Live In or See,” a woman camps out front of her daughter’s fenced-in trailer home, pleading with her to leave her gross boyfriend and return to the land of the living. Suddenly police open fire and she’s over the fence, trying to find her possibly wounded daughter and also steer clear of a foul, debris- and garbage-littered pool.
“Tell Me When I Disappear,” a spooky story about a high school camping trip; loud noises, startling, getting everyone up and out of their tents; something attacking but not anything one can see with eyes . . .
September 25, 2026
Glen Hirshberg seems to stay off the radar of horror release lists, so I sometimes forget he is still actively adding to his impressive collection of great stories. His 'Motherless Children' trilogy was pretty awesome, and the stories in this volume are of the same caliber, just less obvious in their monsters. Hirshberg creates atmosphere like King weaves characters, with a studied yet subtle brilliance. Each of these stories pulls you in, places you in it almost, so the unsettling bits are that much more effective since you sense it might actually be happening. No grandiose evil, no single entity, nothing really to point at, to identify as being what's wrong with the picture, but you know all the same that you just experienced it and probably won't be able to forget it, even if you know you should. Hirshberg is that good.
June 1, 2023
Another set of Hirshberg's formidably literate ghost stories, and I think part of the concept here is "ghost stories where you don't expect them"--exurbs, the desert, an antique railroad. Plus a Rhode Island story that embraces the true strangeness of the coasts. I especially like the brisk lyricism of his prose and the sense of place he evokes; several of these stories remind me of Aickman in their can't-put-a-finger-on-it offness. Not sure I can name a favorite of his, but this is definitely up there.
March 30, 2023
This is my first experience with Glen Hirschberg, even though I've owned The Janus Tree for awhile. The prose is so very beautiful. There were passages I read over and over again because they were just so lovely. I think I'll need to read The Janus Tree sooner than later.
Black Leg ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Devil ⭐⭐⭐
Jetty Sara ⭐⭐⭐.5
Slough ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Destination Land ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A Paradise to Live In or See ⭐⭐⭐
Tell Me When I Disappear ⭐⭐⭐
Black Leg ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Devil ⭐⭐⭐
Jetty Sara ⭐⭐⭐.5
Slough ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Destination Land ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A Paradise to Live In or See ⭐⭐⭐
Tell Me When I Disappear ⭐⭐⭐
January 27, 2024
This book read like a fever dream. Like I was waking up in the most unusual and confusing situations where everything feels creepy.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews