Moss Covered Claws

by Jonah Barrett

Moss Covered Claws, the debut short story collection from fantasy author Jonah Barrett, is filled with tales of anxiety-feeding demons, anti-fascists that travel dimensions, and the vengeful spirit dead seabirds. Barrett mashes dreams and reality together in these ten macabre tales of speculative fiction. They offer a fresh, cheeky voice to Queer fiction and fantasy genres, delivered in this multiverse of forgotten dreams and broken promises.

289 pages, Paperback

Published March 18, 2021

Reviews

[Gigi Little · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories in Moss Covered Claws are wildly imaginative, sometimes brutal, sometimes terrifying, always fascinating. But underneath these tales of sea witches and bog monsters and interdimensional gateways and even a creature formed entirely of Benson Bubbler water fountains, lie the fears we all face: cruelty, loneliness, our past deeds, the things we can’t control, the secrets we hold.

[Samuel Snoek-Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jonah Barrett’s debut story collection combines the haunted inner lives and nature-horror of Daphne DuMaurier with a kind of Clive Barker-esque fabulism to present a harrowing – but also weirdly beautiful – hike through a grotesque Pacific Northwest. A powerful debut that you’ll carry with you into the dark, mossy forests of your dreams.

[Anne Parrish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moss Covered Claws, the debut story collection from Jonah Barret, is a fine introduction to the natural beauty and shifting moods of the Pacific Northwest. Here are forests that hold secrets, bogs that conceal the dead, ocean storms that make us lose our way on the compass of our own hearts. The soft boundary between sky and sea is echoed by the blurred line between reality and fantasy. A college student says she’s been attacked by a dream figure, but has she, really? Two young men embark on a trip to the wilderness, and one mutates into a creature that bears traces of his former self, even has he murders his former friend.

These stories are full of monsters—those we all know and those known only to us. Childhood bullies and those we desire cause harm, ignore our pleas, make us miserable, and occasionally fear for our lives. The future is cast as an ominous place of social control, state-supported falsehoods, and punishment for those outside the lines drawn by decree. Themes of sexual identity, the desire to belong and fly under the radar run through these fantastic and destructive settings and scenes. The essential need to belong and know oneself is tested against dark surrealistic forces time and again.

These are moving stories from an insightful, highly imaginative, and talented writer.

[Jonah Barrett]

Too much blood 😤

[Austin Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

The queers! The moss! The monsters! This short story collection hits the spot. If you are from the PNW, you will connect with these atmospheric little gems. The bog and the fog-shrouded bridge and the beach and the city. These stories blend humor, horror, acid trip fantasy, and social commentary. Some of the images conjured in this book still come back to me, especially when I am rooting around outdoors in the chilly fog, alone. Chef’s kiss!

[Isa Cooper · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got this book because I wanted to support a local author and I still stand by that decision, but while conceptually there was a lot of creativity, the execution was, to me, awful. This is nothing against Jonah Barrett but not one of these ten short stories felt in the slightest well written. I appreciate the ties between characters throughout different stories and there was certainly some originality at play, but every time it tried to be frightening or moving it felt too aware of itself and there was zero immersion. None of the horror was scary, not of the relationships compelling. It tried very hard to follow and subvert tropes but each time felt half baked and boring. A rating of one star feels cruel but it is honest. I understand Barrett is also a filmmaker so perhaps I’ll check out some of their films to see if their talents lie elsewhere.

[Jenna D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark, fascinating, horrific, moody, romantic, a combination of all of these elements… these tantalizing tales tell about the human and natural experience of living in the PNW and of felling naturally (and sometimes unnaturally) “other” in the most fantastical ways.

[Ryan Silberstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

The wild, the past, and the nakedness of our mistakes are the main fears coveted in this fog-laden collection of genre short stories. Looking forward to more from this author.

[Cameron Kobes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a short story anthology, with most of the stories having elements of horror, magic realism, and queer themes. In the first half, the stories tended to be very short and I noted a pattern: almost all of them involved characters causing harm through accidental or thoughtless actions, and then suffering horrifying consequences for it. In the second half of the book the stories were longer and broke away from that pattern. There was a more speculative side to those that I enjoyed a lot. How would our various fanatical political subcultures react to an alien invasion? What would the monsters of Greek mythology be doing if they lived in San Francisco in the 19th century? The stories took some exciting and unexpected directions getting into these unusual ideas.