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Suicide Woods: Stories
A spine-tingling new collection of stories from the acclaimed author of Thrill Me and The Dark Net
Benjamin Percy is a versatile and propulsive storyteller whose genre-busting novels and story collections have ranged from literary to thriller to postapocalyptic. In his essay collection, Thrill Me , he laid bare for readers how and why he channels disparate influences in his work. Now, in his first story collection since the acclaimed Refresh, Refresh , Percy brings his page-turning skills to bear in Suicide Woods , a potent brew of horror, crime, and weird happenings in the woods.
A boy in his uncle’s care falls through the ice on a pond and emerges in a frozen, uncanny state. A group of people in therapy for suicidal ideation undergoes a drastic session in the woods with fatal consequences. A body found on a train and a blood-soaked carpet in an empty house are clues to a puzzling crime in a small town. And in a pulse-quickening novella, thrill seekers on a mapping expedition into the “Bermuda Triangle” of remote Alaska are stranded on a sinister island that seems to want them dead.
In story after story, which have appeared in magazines ranging from the Virginia Quarterly Review and Orion Magazine to McSweeney’s and Ploughshares , Percy delivers haunting and chilling narratives that will have readers hanging on every word. A master class in suspense and horror, Suicide Woods is a dark, inventive collection packed to the gills with eerie, can’t-miss tales.
Benjamin Percy is a versatile and propulsive storyteller whose genre-busting novels and story collections have ranged from literary to thriller to postapocalyptic. In his essay collection, Thrill Me , he laid bare for readers how and why he channels disparate influences in his work. Now, in his first story collection since the acclaimed Refresh, Refresh , Percy brings his page-turning skills to bear in Suicide Woods , a potent brew of horror, crime, and weird happenings in the woods.
A boy in his uncle’s care falls through the ice on a pond and emerges in a frozen, uncanny state. A group of people in therapy for suicidal ideation undergoes a drastic session in the woods with fatal consequences. A body found on a train and a blood-soaked carpet in an empty house are clues to a puzzling crime in a small town. And in a pulse-quickening novella, thrill seekers on a mapping expedition into the “Bermuda Triangle” of remote Alaska are stranded on a sinister island that seems to want them dead.
In story after story, which have appeared in magazines ranging from the Virginia Quarterly Review and Orion Magazine to McSweeney’s and Ploughshares , Percy delivers haunting and chilling narratives that will have readers hanging on every word. A master class in suspense and horror, Suicide Woods is a dark, inventive collection packed to the gills with eerie, can’t-miss tales.
196 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
41 people are currently reading
1142 people want to read
About the author
Benjamin Percy
791 books1,203 followersBenjamin Percy is the author of seven novels -- most recently The Sky Vault (William Morrow) -- three short fiction collections, and a book of essays, Thrill Me, that is widely taught in creative writing classrooms. He writes Wolverine, X-Force, and Ghost Rider for Marvel Comics. His fiction and nonfiction have been published in Esquire (where he is a contributing editor), GQ, Time, Men's Journal, Outside, the Wall Street Journal, Tin House, and the Paris Review. His honors include an NEA fellowship, the Whiting Writer's Award, the Plimpton Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, the iHeart Radio Award for Best Scripted Podcast, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories and Best American Comics.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
October 31, 2020
This story collection is one I had early from the Graywolf galleyclub but saved for #spooktober - most are set in the PNW, Oregon or Alaska, familiar settings for me, making the horrors even scarier. One story had a pandemic! Some are gory while some are closer to the weird. All unsettling!
November 7, 2019
LIke a 3.8
https://www.readingavidly.com/2019/11...
Another of my most anticipated books for this year, I'm happy to say that Benjamin Percy's Suicide Woods didn't let me down. I worry sometimes that something I'm really looking forward to reading is going to just tank, but any fear on that score was swept aside once I started reading this book. It is a collection of ten short stories, well, actually, nine short stories and one nearly novella-length tale at the end; it's also a book that actually lives up to the blurb by author Luis Alberto Urrea, who says right there on the front cover for all to see that it
"deals in a shivery fear, a dreamlike unease, a sense of eldritch hallucinations creeping toward us."
Never a truer word spoken. Word of warning: if you're not inclined toward the weird, eerie, or sometimes downright creepy, pass. This is not the book for you. On with the show.
It's always a good sign, I think, when a collection of stories like this opens with one that sets the tone and acts a sort of teaser for what to expect throughout the rest of the book; this one certainly passes that test with flying colors. The first story, "The Cold Boy" begins with a description of the forest as "hardwood," where the sycamore and oak trees would be completely bare if not for the hundreds of crows, "huddled like little men in black jackets." The sounds they make create "rusty voices" that are audible a quarter of a mile away where a man named Ray stands on a frozen pond in the middle of a Minnesota cornfield, where there are "two sets of footprints, yet he is alone on the ice." First of all, when crows make an early appearance in a story, things rarely turn out for the best since everyone knows that the crow is a harbinger of doom; then, of course, there's the immediate question of why there are two sets of footprints if Ray is out there by himself. At this point, which is just two paragraphs in, the sense of something ominous starts making itself known in my blood, creeping under my skin as if to mirror the feeling of cold that rises and creeps up Ray's legs and into his chest, where his "heart feels frosted with tiny white crystals." And after we realize what's going on here (which I won't divulge), Percy makes a shift into the realm of the unexpected, throwing his readers (well, me anyway) completely into off-kilter mode, where, quite honestly, I stayed throughout the entire book. At the same time, there's more to this collection opener than just the eeriness and the unsettling creep factor; for me it begins a clear line of thought running from this first story through the last, in which attempts to alter or conquer nature, both human and otherwise, turn into the stuff of nightmares.
If you are a reader who prefers uplifting, follow-the-dotted-line sort of stories or stories full of nice nice and happy endings, or who demand fully fleshed-out characters in your reading, move along. That sort of thing you just won't find here. It's going to appeal more to those people who enjoy books along the lines of what I call "strange with purpose" where thinking is required, which is pretty much the bread and butter of my fiction reading these days. It is unforgettable, really, and I can certainly recommend it.
https://www.readingavidly.com/2019/11...
Another of my most anticipated books for this year, I'm happy to say that Benjamin Percy's Suicide Woods didn't let me down. I worry sometimes that something I'm really looking forward to reading is going to just tank, but any fear on that score was swept aside once I started reading this book. It is a collection of ten short stories, well, actually, nine short stories and one nearly novella-length tale at the end; it's also a book that actually lives up to the blurb by author Luis Alberto Urrea, who says right there on the front cover for all to see that it
"deals in a shivery fear, a dreamlike unease, a sense of eldritch hallucinations creeping toward us."
Never a truer word spoken. Word of warning: if you're not inclined toward the weird, eerie, or sometimes downright creepy, pass. This is not the book for you. On with the show.
It's always a good sign, I think, when a collection of stories like this opens with one that sets the tone and acts a sort of teaser for what to expect throughout the rest of the book; this one certainly passes that test with flying colors. The first story, "The Cold Boy" begins with a description of the forest as "hardwood," where the sycamore and oak trees would be completely bare if not for the hundreds of crows, "huddled like little men in black jackets." The sounds they make create "rusty voices" that are audible a quarter of a mile away where a man named Ray stands on a frozen pond in the middle of a Minnesota cornfield, where there are "two sets of footprints, yet he is alone on the ice." First of all, when crows make an early appearance in a story, things rarely turn out for the best since everyone knows that the crow is a harbinger of doom; then, of course, there's the immediate question of why there are two sets of footprints if Ray is out there by himself. At this point, which is just two paragraphs in, the sense of something ominous starts making itself known in my blood, creeping under my skin as if to mirror the feeling of cold that rises and creeps up Ray's legs and into his chest, where his "heart feels frosted with tiny white crystals." And after we realize what's going on here (which I won't divulge), Percy makes a shift into the realm of the unexpected, throwing his readers (well, me anyway) completely into off-kilter mode, where, quite honestly, I stayed throughout the entire book. At the same time, there's more to this collection opener than just the eeriness and the unsettling creep factor; for me it begins a clear line of thought running from this first story through the last, in which attempts to alter or conquer nature, both human and otherwise, turn into the stuff of nightmares.
If you are a reader who prefers uplifting, follow-the-dotted-line sort of stories or stories full of nice nice and happy endings, or who demand fully fleshed-out characters in your reading, move along. That sort of thing you just won't find here. It's going to appeal more to those people who enjoy books along the lines of what I call "strange with purpose" where thinking is required, which is pretty much the bread and butter of my fiction reading these days. It is unforgettable, really, and I can certainly recommend it.
February 11, 2020
Suicide Woods is a collection of short stories, a fantastic blend of horror and thriller narratives by a Minnesotan author. As a Minnesotan, I adore when authors take advantage of the creepy landscape we have here - the eery woods, the broad, icy lakes that can quietly swallow and drown a person, our freezing, inhuman cold. The atmosphere of each of the stories was remarkable. I admired how unique from one another they were, but still each held a common theme of survival, winter/Earth, and nature/animals. I LOVED that one of the stories had a nonbinary protagonist, another was about an epidemic, and another about a bear on a quest to become human. Suicide Woods was a creepy blend of variegated stories and one must pay close attention to identify their common threads. I read this book at night by the fireplace and it made the reading experience that much more grand.
February 15, 2020
3.75 stars
A surprisingly well done selection of 10 short stories. Not the short stories that you may be familiar with, however. In this book you find horror, crime and the unusual, all centered around a wooded area.
Two of the stories quickly became favorites - "The Cold Boy" the story of a young boy who fell through the ice and was recused by his uncle - or was he? And "The Uncharted" where an island appears to be trying to kill it's visitors, becoming their biggest nightmare.
Haunting and terrifying makes this little book one to read. Stories that you won't soon forget - real enough to be plausible - yet - can we believe them even possible?
A surprisingly well done selection of 10 short stories. Not the short stories that you may be familiar with, however. In this book you find horror, crime and the unusual, all centered around a wooded area.
Two of the stories quickly became favorites - "The Cold Boy" the story of a young boy who fell through the ice and was recused by his uncle - or was he? And "The Uncharted" where an island appears to be trying to kill it's visitors, becoming their biggest nightmare.
Haunting and terrifying makes this little book one to read. Stories that you won't soon forget - real enough to be plausible - yet - can we believe them even possible?
June 27, 2020
This book contains 10 short stories, all of them being rather creepy and sometimes about dark subject matter... Others are very bizarre and will take you down roads very little traveled. Many of the stories surprised me and they all were entertaining. I pretty much read one story after another.
I suppose the story in here that will get the most attention these days is The Balloon, which is a story about a deadly pandemic sweeping the globe! And to think this book was published just before the real pandemic got going! It's a dark tale without much hope, especially how bitter and mean some of the characters were in here.
Other stories that stood out to me were The Uncharted which was the longest story in here. It's a tale set up in the strange triangle of Alaska where people vanish all of the time. And it stars a fictional YouTube star who became famous doing risky stuff. But is he brave enough to survive the unknown supernatural stuff up in Alaska? This one had some good twists so you weren't sure what to expect!
Another one I really liked was the one about the bear, Heart of a Bear. I think I'll remember this one for a long time! In a weird way it sort of reminds me of a cross between "the three little bears" and "Animal Farm". I did feel sorry for the poor bear at the beginning!
The Mud Man was another one I really liked. It's very creative too..the majority of the ones in the book are creative. And easy to read too.
One I didn't like was Writs of Possession. I think it was wondering too much for my tastes. I like a story to be more focused..
I suppose the story in here that will get the most attention these days is The Balloon, which is a story about a deadly pandemic sweeping the globe! And to think this book was published just before the real pandemic got going! It's a dark tale without much hope, especially how bitter and mean some of the characters were in here.
Other stories that stood out to me were The Uncharted which was the longest story in here. It's a tale set up in the strange triangle of Alaska where people vanish all of the time. And it stars a fictional YouTube star who became famous doing risky stuff. But is he brave enough to survive the unknown supernatural stuff up in Alaska? This one had some good twists so you weren't sure what to expect!
Another one I really liked was the one about the bear, Heart of a Bear. I think I'll remember this one for a long time! In a weird way it sort of reminds me of a cross between "the three little bears" and "Animal Farm". I did feel sorry for the poor bear at the beginning!
The Mud Man was another one I really liked. It's very creative too..the majority of the ones in the book are creative. And easy to read too.
One I didn't like was Writs of Possession. I think it was wondering too much for my tastes. I like a story to be more focused..
October 19, 2019
I received this through the Graywolf Galley Club and I'm very glad I did. This is a creepy and inventive collection of short stories. Some I liked better than others, but if you are into horror and weird happenings I think you will enjoy this.
July 23, 2021
This short story collection was excellent! The ten stories were all atmospheric and wonderfully creepy. I first became aware of the author as the writer of the excellent Wolverine podcasts, but am now glad I looked up other work by him and will now search out other novels by him.
The Cold Boy- The visiting nephew of a taxidermist falls through the ice in his backyard pond and comes out changed. It had a Pet Semetary vibe.
Suspect Zero-A woman con artist is underestimated, much to the dismay of those who interact with her. The train intro was intriguing.
The Dummy- A female high school student who wrestles is attacked by a fellow teammate but the stuffed dummy she had been practicing on, seems to save her.
Heart of a Bear- This was a strange tale that was never going to end well for the family involved. A bear is entranced by a family and becomes human-like for a time, without the townspeople noticing.
Dial Tone- Don't underestimate the quiet man working alongside you. His mild-manner could be covering a black heart.
The Mud Man- A busy man accidentally creates a doppelganger out of mud, but this mud man starts to become more engaged with his family life than he was. Another tale of people accepting a strange creature in their midst without raising an alarm.
Writs of Possession- More a sad slice-of-life story about evictions than a horror story. A deputy steels herself for the sorrow she has to witness as she evicts people from their homes.
The Balloon- A pandemic story that was written before our current crisis so it feels strangely prophetic.
Suicide Woods- My least favorite story, yet the namesake of the book. Suicidal individuals have joined a support group that has a radical way to make them appreciate life again.
The Unchartered- This last story is more a novella, and could have been fleshed out into a full novel. A woman working for a mapping company hires a trio of adventurers to chart some islands off the coast of Alaska where some previous workers have gone missing. On a whim, she joins them, but their small plane crashes and the survivors are sucked into a mind-bending and horrific experience.
These stories all have a sinister edge to them and I enjoyed all of the dark tales.
The Cold Boy- The visiting nephew of a taxidermist falls through the ice in his backyard pond and comes out changed. It had a Pet Semetary vibe.
Suspect Zero-A woman con artist is underestimated, much to the dismay of those who interact with her. The train intro was intriguing.
The Dummy- A female high school student who wrestles is attacked by a fellow teammate but the stuffed dummy she had been practicing on, seems to save her.
Heart of a Bear- This was a strange tale that was never going to end well for the family involved. A bear is entranced by a family and becomes human-like for a time, without the townspeople noticing.
Dial Tone- Don't underestimate the quiet man working alongside you. His mild-manner could be covering a black heart.
The Mud Man- A busy man accidentally creates a doppelganger out of mud, but this mud man starts to become more engaged with his family life than he was. Another tale of people accepting a strange creature in their midst without raising an alarm.
Writs of Possession- More a sad slice-of-life story about evictions than a horror story. A deputy steels herself for the sorrow she has to witness as she evicts people from their homes.
The Balloon- A pandemic story that was written before our current crisis so it feels strangely prophetic.
Suicide Woods- My least favorite story, yet the namesake of the book. Suicidal individuals have joined a support group that has a radical way to make them appreciate life again.
The Unchartered- This last story is more a novella, and could have been fleshed out into a full novel. A woman working for a mapping company hires a trio of adventurers to chart some islands off the coast of Alaska where some previous workers have gone missing. On a whim, she joins them, but their small plane crashes and the survivors are sucked into a mind-bending and horrific experience.
These stories all have a sinister edge to them and I enjoyed all of the dark tales.
February 10, 2020
I admire Percy's attempt to balance character development with a creepy setup in each story of this collection of short horror tales. There's little bits of creepy and gory imagery, but he doesn't lean so heavy on this being the main draw for the reader. It's a shared space for all three elements, and it never strongly emerges into anything because of it's tip toeing instead of leaning on one attracting aspect.
Stories revolve around a central character who is sketched out shoddily; often, the characters are weary average joes/joettes who are succumbing to repetition.
In "Suspect Zero," it's a train conductor:
"So many towns, so many lives, made it somehow harder to care about them all. People mattered less when you saw how many of them there were."
In "Dial Tone," it's a telemarketer:
"You feel like someone is holding you down and poking you in the forehead or the chest over and over and over and over. That finger keeps tap-tap-tapping. Dozens of times, hundreds of times, thousands of times. You can feel the pain adding up, and you want to scream because you know that after a while that finger is going to jab through your skin and crack through your bone and finally dig all the way through you."
In "The Mud Man," it's a CPA (or tax accountant of some sort):
"he is always thinking about something else-- about reductions to the gift tax rate, the new exclusions for estates and trusts, the valuation of qualified real property, and on and on, his mind clogged with numbers and forms, his fingers dirty with ink and crosshatched with paper cuts."
There are even more than this; these are just three examples. This overwhelming single dimensional sameness overwhelms almost every character.
The only one that stood out for me was "Heart of a Bear." A wild bear begins to spontaneously awaken to its new human emotions and stirrings to horrifying results. There are multiple scenes of our half-wild, half-human bear attempting to shop for groceries, and both were absorbing.
A collection that's timid where it should be toothsome.
Stories revolve around a central character who is sketched out shoddily; often, the characters are weary average joes/joettes who are succumbing to repetition.
In "Suspect Zero," it's a train conductor:
"So many towns, so many lives, made it somehow harder to care about them all. People mattered less when you saw how many of them there were."
In "Dial Tone," it's a telemarketer:
"You feel like someone is holding you down and poking you in the forehead or the chest over and over and over and over. That finger keeps tap-tap-tapping. Dozens of times, hundreds of times, thousands of times. You can feel the pain adding up, and you want to scream because you know that after a while that finger is going to jab through your skin and crack through your bone and finally dig all the way through you."
In "The Mud Man," it's a CPA (or tax accountant of some sort):
"he is always thinking about something else-- about reductions to the gift tax rate, the new exclusions for estates and trusts, the valuation of qualified real property, and on and on, his mind clogged with numbers and forms, his fingers dirty with ink and crosshatched with paper cuts."
There are even more than this; these are just three examples. This overwhelming single dimensional sameness overwhelms almost every character.
The only one that stood out for me was "Heart of a Bear." A wild bear begins to spontaneously awaken to its new human emotions and stirrings to horrifying results. There are multiple scenes of our half-wild, half-human bear attempting to shop for groceries, and both were absorbing.
A collection that's timid where it should be toothsome.
July 22, 2020
I don’t usually read short stories but I know Ben and am really interested in his writing. I thoroughly enjoyed this book! All of the characters are so interesting and the stories were woven in such a way that kept my interest the whole time. I highly recommend this book!!
August 25, 2020
The last story in this book, holy crap. It seriously scared me.
“Heart of a Bear” is the other one I’ll be thinking about for a while.
“Heart of a Bear” is the other one I’ll be thinking about for a while.
September 3, 2019
I love authors who are constantly expanding their horizons to see where their muse wants to take them next. As a newcomer to Percy’s writings, I was a bit startled at the skill and art that he displays in this latest collection of short stories, in which he focuses on all the kinds of things that can take place in the “woods.” In Suicide Woods, even nature seems to be plotting to kill us off. Wow! Now I have to go back and find his other books, just to catch up with his creative arc.
January 6, 2020
I wasn't sure if I would enjoy Percy's prose, but every story in this book was clever and super creepy. Faves include "The Dummy", "Heart of a Bear"- which I alternately laughed aloud and grimaced in disgust and surprise, "The Mud Man" which was a wonderful metaphor for "dbad bc wifey can just find another, better man just like YOU", "Suicide Woods" which was fucked up and instantly relatable for anyone who has looked into The Void- I esp loved the narrator using the royal "we" which isn't done omnisciently like this, and last but not least "The Uncharted". The Uncharted was an amazing novella that delivered much more than expected and was the cherry of this eerie pie.
Cannot wait to read more of hiswork.
Cannot wait to read more of hiswork.
July 2, 2025
I actually couldn’t finish many of the short stories. I love horror books but I do not get in to books where humans are abusive, especially towards animals. I will say the one short story Suspect Zero completely surprised me. It did still have animal cruelty in it but did not turn out the way I thought it would at the end. That is why this book earned 3 stars instead of 2
November 11, 2020
A strong collection of short stories and one novella. Bizarre, topical, mystical and gripping.
August 20, 2021
An excellent short story collection. Percy's writing is very atmospheric.
March 22, 2022
A really nice group of creepy stories. The title story was horrifying - in a good way.
August 28, 2021
This collection was a bit hit and miss for me, but the last novella alone makes it worth the price of purchase.
November 18, 2024
The stories is this collection stay with you, bothering you while you're trying to sleep. Years later I still come back to this book, dreading it, hanging off every word of it.
September 1, 2019
These are dark and disturbing stories, for those of you who can handle them. I love to read. I love short stories and admire the very special talent it takes to write them.
February 7, 2021
this was a very enjoyable short story collection. i was spooked as well as very entertained! (physical book)
August 22, 2020
I think Benjamin Percy might be my favorite contemporary author. His mixture of literary fiction and genre fiction, usually horror, is always gripping, and his prose style, with its use of specialized verbs and swallowing, goring feeling like you're being chewed up and left breathless, is amazing. All the stories in Suicide Woods have a similar thematic strain of things that are seemingly inhuman making attempts at being human; the people or supernatural things that exist at the fringes of society, that feel a kind of alienation from everyone and everything. What follows is a scoring by story
The Cold Boy - 4/5 - This one had a spooky, ethereal quality, about a boy who escapes a frozen pond and seemingly becomes someone who thrives in the cold.
Suspect Zero - 3/5 - Maybe I'm too stupid to get this one. I was left a little confused and disoriented by it, but it has some great imagery in it.
The Dummy - 4/5 - I like the mysterious quality of the nature of the Dummy, and I got a sense of the characters being fleshed out, but they were still missing something. A couple more pages dedicated to character might've helped.
Heart of a Bear - 5/5 - I had a big ol' shit-eating grin reading this, a story about a bear attempting to live like a human, but then it got real dark real fast and left me a little hurt, which I suppose is its greatest quality as a story: to move from an almost light-hearted comicness to a sense of dark urgency in the snap of a finger.
Dial Tone - 4/5 - One of the stories in here closer to reality, about a telemarketer's darkest thoughts as he works his dayjob. Does a pretty good job of showing the detachment from humanity the characterizes this collection.
The Mud Man - 5/5 - Another favorite, because it got so bizarre and it seemingly ends on a non-note when you think it's going to end like a monster movie. A teasing yet brilliantly written story about making space for things in your life.
Writs of Possession - 5/5 - Probably the closest story in here to straight-up literary fiction, a collection of interwoven short pieces about homes or possessions being repossessed, and the humans at the heart of those - people who failed to pay their bills, or sell their homes, or homeless children looking for a place to stay. Heartbreaking.
The Balloon - 4/5 - Apparently this later emerged as his novel The Dead Lands, in which a virus is going around killing people except for the main characters, and it explores the sense of alienation and hate they experience by those around them for being resistant to the sickness. Really poignant and relevant to our times.
Suicide Woods - 5/5 - harrowing. Hopeful at times, but ends on a surreally dark note of juxtaposed images and feelings.
The Uncharted - 5/5 - the novella-length piece that ends the book, about a real-life place in Alaska called the Bermuda Triangle where people have gone missing. A straight-up horror story, and one with characters that both feel real and archetypical at the same time, and very hard to put down. This one made me feel like I was out of breath the whole time.
A pretty great collection overall, and I think something that can and should cause the reader to reflect on the more detached, inhuman feelings and moments in their lives, the things that make them feel monstrous and they know are wrong, but can't help but feel anyways.
The Cold Boy - 4/5 - This one had a spooky, ethereal quality, about a boy who escapes a frozen pond and seemingly becomes someone who thrives in the cold.
Suspect Zero - 3/5 - Maybe I'm too stupid to get this one. I was left a little confused and disoriented by it, but it has some great imagery in it.
The Dummy - 4/5 - I like the mysterious quality of the nature of the Dummy, and I got a sense of the characters being fleshed out, but they were still missing something. A couple more pages dedicated to character might've helped.
Heart of a Bear - 5/5 - I had a big ol' shit-eating grin reading this, a story about a bear attempting to live like a human, but then it got real dark real fast and left me a little hurt, which I suppose is its greatest quality as a story: to move from an almost light-hearted comicness to a sense of dark urgency in the snap of a finger.
Dial Tone - 4/5 - One of the stories in here closer to reality, about a telemarketer's darkest thoughts as he works his dayjob. Does a pretty good job of showing the detachment from humanity the characterizes this collection.
The Mud Man - 5/5 - Another favorite, because it got so bizarre and it seemingly ends on a non-note when you think it's going to end like a monster movie. A teasing yet brilliantly written story about making space for things in your life.
Writs of Possession - 5/5 - Probably the closest story in here to straight-up literary fiction, a collection of interwoven short pieces about homes or possessions being repossessed, and the humans at the heart of those - people who failed to pay their bills, or sell their homes, or homeless children looking for a place to stay. Heartbreaking.
The Balloon - 4/5 - Apparently this later emerged as his novel The Dead Lands, in which a virus is going around killing people except for the main characters, and it explores the sense of alienation and hate they experience by those around them for being resistant to the sickness. Really poignant and relevant to our times.
Suicide Woods - 5/5 - harrowing. Hopeful at times, but ends on a surreally dark note of juxtaposed images and feelings.
The Uncharted - 5/5 - the novella-length piece that ends the book, about a real-life place in Alaska called the Bermuda Triangle where people have gone missing. A straight-up horror story, and one with characters that both feel real and archetypical at the same time, and very hard to put down. This one made me feel like I was out of breath the whole time.
A pretty great collection overall, and I think something that can and should cause the reader to reflect on the more detached, inhuman feelings and moments in their lives, the things that make them feel monstrous and they know are wrong, but can't help but feel anyways.
April 11, 2021
I was going along with this collection thinking that it is incredible solid, one could even say dependable: all 3 and 4*. Maybe no absolute stand-outs, still, this is good, enjoyable collection. Than the last story, the novella I was looking forward to the most since I love novellas, was a crushing disappointment to me. Final judgement? I don't know. I think I just move on and try a full length novel by Percy because I am intrigued enough after this.
The stories in "Suicide Woods" often feature wintery, woodsy settings and Percy knows how to capitalize on the atmospheric backdrop, it's always incorporated into the creep of each story. I liked how he sets scene and mood and often enjoyed how he quickly introduced us to interesting characters. Weirdly enough, I thought that was contradicted by the novella, "The Uncharted" where the characters and their dialogue read like taken from B-Horror / Action flick. Nonetheless, most of the time I liked how he handled the characters. Another plus is the variety in here, there are some unusual concepts (down to one story narrated from the POV of a bear) and different vibes (from weird to melancholic over to Pandemic worlds and then downright disturbing), and I definitely value a good variety. But I also felt as if every single story in here was lacking a certain something to make it better, the endings never seemed to exhilarate the told tale, I always felt there was additional scare potential hidden in them and finally not let out. Good build-up and then only adequate solution. Hence no individual 5* even though objectively there a bunch of good stories in here.
The fact that I round my rating down is due to the novella finishing out this collection. It just didn't work for me on several levels (as mentioned the characters and their dialogue, too long of an exposition, Horror elements were not my personal taste and included lots of hallucinations), I guess it left the bad taste of wrapping up on the low. Many other readers seem to quite like the novella in particular, so as always, these are just my personal 5 cents.
3.5*
My top 3:
3) The Cold Boy
2) Dial Tone
1) Heart of a Bear
The stories in "Suicide Woods" often feature wintery, woodsy settings and Percy knows how to capitalize on the atmospheric backdrop, it's always incorporated into the creep of each story. I liked how he sets scene and mood and often enjoyed how he quickly introduced us to interesting characters. Weirdly enough, I thought that was contradicted by the novella, "The Uncharted" where the characters and their dialogue read like taken from B-Horror / Action flick. Nonetheless, most of the time I liked how he handled the characters. Another plus is the variety in here, there are some unusual concepts (down to one story narrated from the POV of a bear) and different vibes (from weird to melancholic over to Pandemic worlds and then downright disturbing), and I definitely value a good variety. But I also felt as if every single story in here was lacking a certain something to make it better, the endings never seemed to exhilarate the told tale, I always felt there was additional scare potential hidden in them and finally not let out. Good build-up and then only adequate solution. Hence no individual 5* even though objectively there a bunch of good stories in here.
The fact that I round my rating down is due to the novella finishing out this collection. It just didn't work for me on several levels (as mentioned the characters and their dialogue, too long of an exposition, Horror elements were not my personal taste and included lots of hallucinations), I guess it left the bad taste of wrapping up on the low. Many other readers seem to quite like the novella in particular, so as always, these are just my personal 5 cents.
3.5*
My top 3:
3) The Cold Boy
2) Dial Tone
1) Heart of a Bear
December 2, 2019
Percy always seems to have a way of taking the constructs of a genre, and putting them into a stranglehold. The stories in SUICIDE WOODS feel like horror and speculative fiction pieces, but they do so much more than make you gape in shock. Whether its a bear adopting an infant, a mud-replica of a man slowly replacing his familial duties, or a peon marketing caller slowly losing his mind, Percy makes a home in fantastical, outlandish, ghastly corners of his imagination.
But these stories also manage to bend the reader's mind to his own warped visions. In "Suspect Zero," we see the main players in a murder story told out of chronological order, taking the reader through several interesting twists and turns. "Writs of Possession" is among my favorite in the book, a collection of vignettes of those facing financially ruins of evictions, repossessions, subpoenas, and more in a panorama of the economic collapse, illustrating how sometimes the worst horrors are those most real.
The final story is a page-turning horror/adventure that takes familiar exploration tropes and leave you spinning by the end. A team of tech-company surveyors goes missing in the "Bermuda Triangle of Alaska," and a new team consisting of the company's leading mapper and a trio that creates daredevil YouTube videos goes to find out what happened, only to learn there are some corners of the world where nature rules over all.
Percy has a way to take the best constructs of genre fiction and make them his own. If you want a mind-warping collection of nightmare stories, SUICIDE WOODS definitely delivers.
But these stories also manage to bend the reader's mind to his own warped visions. In "Suspect Zero," we see the main players in a murder story told out of chronological order, taking the reader through several interesting twists and turns. "Writs of Possession" is among my favorite in the book, a collection of vignettes of those facing financially ruins of evictions, repossessions, subpoenas, and more in a panorama of the economic collapse, illustrating how sometimes the worst horrors are those most real.
The final story is a page-turning horror/adventure that takes familiar exploration tropes and leave you spinning by the end. A team of tech-company surveyors goes missing in the "Bermuda Triangle of Alaska," and a new team consisting of the company's leading mapper and a trio that creates daredevil YouTube videos goes to find out what happened, only to learn there are some corners of the world where nature rules over all.
Percy has a way to take the best constructs of genre fiction and make them his own. If you want a mind-warping collection of nightmare stories, SUICIDE WOODS definitely delivers.
March 24, 2020
I have to say my favorite story was definitely 'The Uncharted'. It really messed with your mind and makes you wonder about uncharted parts of Earth, like the Bermuda Triangle, and what makes them so supernatural and scary. Yet they are also intriguing because we want to know the secrets of the unknown, we are curious creatures are we not?
Another good short story that creeped me out for its very realistic feel was, 'The Balloon'. It's opening paragraph reads,
"The sickness begins with a cough, a needling itch at the back of your throat that grows worse until it feels like your lungs are sleeved with burrowing ants that you must expel, barking raggedly into your hands until they are spotted with blood. Accompanying this is a fever so powerful that a wet washcloth steams when placed on your forehead." (Pg. 97)
Just that paragraph alone screams Corona Virus, our current pandemic sweeping the globe. This book came out last year and it has story with similarities to a current life event. Scary! But it was an interesting read and scares me about post apocalyptic times, because in this short story, the disease it spoke of killed many, many, many people and spread rapidly.
"However many hundred become however many thousand become however many million in a matter of days. There isn't time for quarantine. There is barely enough time to utter the word pandemic." (Pg. 102)
This book definitely has creepy stories that will surely bring a chill to your spine.
Another good short story that creeped me out for its very realistic feel was, 'The Balloon'. It's opening paragraph reads,
"The sickness begins with a cough, a needling itch at the back of your throat that grows worse until it feels like your lungs are sleeved with burrowing ants that you must expel, barking raggedly into your hands until they are spotted with blood. Accompanying this is a fever so powerful that a wet washcloth steams when placed on your forehead." (Pg. 97)
Just that paragraph alone screams Corona Virus, our current pandemic sweeping the globe. This book came out last year and it has story with similarities to a current life event. Scary! But it was an interesting read and scares me about post apocalyptic times, because in this short story, the disease it spoke of killed many, many, many people and spread rapidly.
"However many hundred become however many thousand become however many million in a matter of days. There isn't time for quarantine. There is barely enough time to utter the word pandemic." (Pg. 102)
This book definitely has creepy stories that will surely bring a chill to your spine.
February 25, 2020
A book of short stories and one novella sized work; the genre is horror and the themes vary from loneliness to serial killers and end of the world dystopia. I enjoyed the stories especially "The Cold Boy" which is about a man rescuing his nephew from a frozen pond and getting back something that wasn't quite human. I also liked the very strange "The Heart of a Bear" which is a very odd story about a bear that tries to become human with some terrible consequences. A couple of the stories I didn't really understand the point, but each story was crafted with beautiful settings reflecting the author's midwest (Minnesota) upbringing. I could actually feel myself at times in the cold woods, watching the trains make their way up the tracks.
I read the author's book "The Dark Net" and wasn't crazy about it but I enjoyed these stories so much I read it all in one day.
I read the author's book "The Dark Net" and wasn't crazy about it but I enjoyed these stories so much I read it all in one day.
November 25, 2019
Legitimately and delightfully scary -- what I've been waiting for horror to become for a long, long time. I'll definitely be re-reading them around the campfire next summer, but these aren't simple shivery fireside tales -- they're more dangerous than that. Propulsive, vibrant, and coursing with energy, these stories thread their way into your imagination -- and then once you're tangled up in them you realize they aren't benign, and they're woven of your secret fears, and now you're tied to your chair and there's nothing to do but watch as they play out to their unsettling conclusions.
Each story is worth staying up late for, but I'll keep it short and just say that I've never been wrecked by a story the way I was ruined by Heart of a Bear.
Each story is worth staying up late for, but I'll keep it short and just say that I've never been wrecked by a story the way I was ruined by Heart of a Bear.
November 9, 2019
At their best, these stories are interesting, with engaging, well-crafted prose. At their worst, they're boring, and occasionally read like mediocre fanfiction. Even the stories that start strong don't really stick the landing, with endings feeling either too predictable or too unresolved (in the latter case, it definitely feels like Percy is trying to take after China Miéville—and not succeeding). While I still enjoyed parts of the book, ultimately the interesting narratives and characters aren't strong to make up for the poor prose, and the well-crafted prose isn't strong enough to make up for the boring narratives and characters.
November 21, 2019
A collection of unsettling, distressing, dark short stories that rest firmly in the horror genre. Percy's prose style is wonderfully immersive and detailed, but I found the collection itself to be a bit uneven. Some of the stories were fantastic ("Cold Boy", "Heart of a Bear", "The Balloon") while the rest were either just okay or forgettable. In some stories, the twists and horror felt gratuitous, not earned. Ultimately my favorite story in this book was "The Uncharted" which is more of a novella, part fantasy, part horror, part survival story about some strange goings-on in Alaska. If you only read one story in this collection, make it "The Uncharted"!
August 1, 2020
Ben Percy's defining stylistic claim to fame is a refusal to separate literary fiction and genre fiction. For him, they are one and the same, and that comes through prominently in this dark collection. All the narrative tug of a well-creased pulp paperback, all the art of prize-winning literary prose (which, by the way, much of it is). My favorite stories in this collection were "The Cold Boy," "Writs of Possesion," "Mud Man," and the shattering final novella "The Uncharted."
Each of these channels a gruesome or supernatural element to reflect the mundane-but-pressing anxieties of life that we've all confronted. That's the fuel Percy uses to make his stories truly scary.
Each of these channels a gruesome or supernatural element to reflect the mundane-but-pressing anxieties of life that we've all confronted. That's the fuel Percy uses to make his stories truly scary.
October 6, 2020
2.5 stars
This collection of short stories was some hits and some misses. I was most fond of "Dial Tone" and the novella "The Uncharted." "Dial Tone's" first person point of view worked quite well with Percy's writing style, and I think it was better than other stories for that reason. For the most part, the stories didn't really get any thrills or chills out of me which I expected from a horror collection, but that could honestly be a me problem. I'd have to read more horror to find out, because I'm still quite new to the genre. Most stories in this collection were just average, with "The Dummy" being the least enjoyable one due to some weirdness of the protagonist/how she was written.
This collection of short stories was some hits and some misses. I was most fond of "Dial Tone" and the novella "The Uncharted." "Dial Tone's" first person point of view worked quite well with Percy's writing style, and I think it was better than other stories for that reason. For the most part, the stories didn't really get any thrills or chills out of me which I expected from a horror collection, but that could honestly be a me problem. I'd have to read more horror to find out, because I'm still quite new to the genre. Most stories in this collection were just average, with "The Dummy" being the least enjoyable one due to some weirdness of the protagonist/how she was written.
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