Bloody Summer

Trespass Collection #6

by Carmen Maria Machado

What do children know that adults can’t begin to believe? The answer is hidden in plain sight in this haunting short story by the bestselling author of Her Body and Other Parties.

Tiger, tiger, burning bright, in the forests of the night. In the town of Never-Again, Pennsylvania, this hand-game song contains a history—centuries of inexplicable tiger sightings. A researcher arrives to write yet another academic paper about the well-studied town, called “Big Cats in the Children’s Hand-Games of Never-Again, Pennsylvania.” Nobody expects to find new clues—but, years after a scene of unimaginable violence, the truth about this childish chant is about to come out.

Carmen Maria Machado’s Bloody Summer is part of Trespass, a collection of wild stories about animal instincts, human folly, and survival from award-winning, bestselling authors. Read or listen to each in a single sitting.

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Fantasy, Fiction, Audiobook, Magical Realism, Novella

28 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 24, 2022

About the author

Carmen Maria Machado's debut short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties, was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize, LA Times Book Prize Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize, and the Crawford Award. In 2018, the New York Times listed Her Body and Other Parties as a member of "The New Vanguard," one of "15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century."

Her essays, fiction, and criticism have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Granta, Tin House, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Guernica, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Michener-Copernicus Foundation, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the CINTAS Foundation, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. She is the Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Philadelphia with her wife.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Beds are empty, bodies near,
Children missing, tigers here.’

Have you ever found some children’s nursery rhymes to be vaguely unsettling or wondered what dark references lurk under seemingly innocent lyrics? Carmen Maria Machado sinks sharp claws into these thoughts and mauls you with them in Bloody Summer. Diving into the eerie lore and unsolved violent history of a small Pennsylvanian town, what begins as a fictional academic article into the youthful hand-game rhymes that spread from the area abruptly turns into a horror show of dismembered bodies and missing children. Sharp and sinister, this short story shows how darkness can hide under playful veneers.

The framing as an academic piece of writing really works narrative magic in Bloody Summer. There’s a sense of grounding that adds weight to it and a sense of realism that allows the story to bypass needing to make the town feel believable since it is just presented as a real place, while also feeling like reading the history of an urban legend where we learn the trajectory of the past into the present through highlighted rumors mixed with life stories of key figures. There’s a fun sense of analysis, such as of the two hand-game songs and the latter in particular with its echos of William Blake’s The Tyger (should we question their ‘fearful symmetry?’), and Machado even mixes actual facts—like there being more tigers in captivity in the US than free in the wild around the world—with the fictional town lore.

Added to this is the sense of disconnect from the events, told decades after the titular Bloody Summer through an article and interview, that spotlights some primary themes. Being “academic” in nature, nothing is presented as conclusive and instead as speculation and theory adding an extra layer of mystery to the already mysterious events. It also glosses over the really horrific details (such as the particulars about the abuse faced by the children) in a way that emphasizes the idea that horrible things lurk just beneath the surface of words, people, and towns.

I really enjoyed this one, even if it is almost too brief and ends rather suddenly. It leaves you with a lot of unanswered questions, though that really plays into the overall mysteriousness of it and the idea that science and reasoning still fails to grasp at the horror hiding here. There is also an interesting look at ideas of captivity (the brief mention of colonialism is a nice touch that expands the idea) and abuse and how under a society that hides the abuse under false niceties and backs those abused into a corner with no way out, they will feel the only path left to freedom is by force. Bloody Summer is a quick dose of eerie fun with a really enjoyable narrative framing that will have you overthinking the history behind unsettling nursery rhymes.

4/5

‘Even if it meant being wild on soil never meant to bear me.’

[Melanie (meltotheany) · Rating 4 out of 5]

✰ the collection on amazon
✰ the collection on goodreads

“Even if it meant being wild on soil never meant to bear me.”

This was harrowingly heartbreaking and carmen is really such a gifted author and can evoke so much pain and so much healing, even with so few pages. This short story is told under the guise of a research paper from the future, and moves forward with a new article or new interview, researching children’s hand clapping games that gives clues about how a small Pennsylvania town, named Never-Again, was massacred by tigers in 1999, where only one child did not disappear. With the last interview in this research project being from that sole survivor, now very much an adult. And this reading like a real piece of nonfiction really just added a whole other layer.

But carmen always weaves this unexplainable magic of breaking my heart and simultaneously healing it with each piece they craft, and this short story was no different. To find freedom and power from your trauma(s) is something i deeply wish for everyone.

trigger + content warnings: a lot of off page violence to children, off page rape and sexual assault, off page pedophilia, mention of suicide, mentions of colonization, death, blood depictions, drawing blood, animal death. (i know these are some heavy tws but truly all were done in a very nongraphic way for me, personally. But still use caution for your own self and mindset.)

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[Sadie Hartmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first pick out of 6 Amazon Original Stories in the Trespass Collection. It's about a journalist or documentarian researching an urban legend known as "Bloody Summer" where all the children and teens in a small town disappear. The legend is that they turned into tigers and ravaged 80+ people. The tale is told in oral tradition through hand games (you know those clapping hand games kids sing) and the town is covered in graffiti depicting tigers.

I enjoyed this, goes by quickly. Like a fairytale. My notes & highlights are visible.

[Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent short story! Machado takes this wild animal prompt and puts a paranormal horror spin on in. Bloody Summer is purportedly an academic research project into a town where a tiger massacre occurred years earlier and extant songs and hand games related to the incident exist among the children of the town. I might have liked this to be a little bit longer, but it was still great and I love Machado's writing.

Content warning for non-explicit references to child sex abuse.

[Gareth Is Haunted · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a wicked story about a small Pensylvanian town called Never Again and the startling events of one bloody summers day.

“TIGER, TIGER”
Tiger, tiger, burning bright, In the forests of the night.
In the night the children sleep, Wake to rhythms from the deep.
From what science, and what art, Speeds the timbre of the heart?
And when the heart begins to beat, Hands or claws? Paws or feet?
Beds are empty, bodies near, Children missing, tigers here.

This was a short but thoroughly enjoyable read. I don't want to leave any spoilers here, so I will leave things at this.
If you have a spare 30 minutes then maybe give this a read.

The final part of the Tresspass series on Amazon Originals.

'I am a child, and it is a forest; I know nothing beyond its trees.'

[Patricija || book.duo · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5

Linkiu apie šitą trumpą istoriją nieko nežinoti. Nieko, visiškai nieko. Nei žanro, nei siužeto. Kai skaitysit, linkiu susilaikyti nuo gūglinimo. Jei esat tingūs, tokie kaip aš – telefoną pasiimti tingėsit, todėl laimėsit. Jei esat iš tų, kuriems visgi niežti nagus – kažkaip raskit būdą susiturėt.

Machado jau yra man įrodžiusi, kad tiesiog pasakiškai sugeba pasakojimą formą paverst savo marionete. Ji tobulai autorei tarnauja – ne atvirkščiai. Pasirinkta ne atsitiktinai – nė akimirkai ir neatrodo kažkaip kitaip. Ir kai skaitydami savim sudvejosit, o sudvejosit, kai imsit kelti klausimus, nes imsit, kai norėsis pasidomėti plačiau, nes norėsis, Machado jau bus prieky jūsų. Ir tik garbė bei malonumas, kai kelią rodo tokie kaip ji.

[Ярослава]

З плюсів: це горор/магічний реалізм, стилізований під нонфікшн - антропологічний аналіз дитячих ігр, задокументованих у певному американському містечку. І крізь призму дитячих примовок і замовлялок проступає історія пиздецю, який стався у містечку: колись там вирвалися на свободу тигри і пожерли пів містечка (а як подумати, то тигри навіть не вирвалися один раз, а снували навколо містечка завжди, бо первісний страх і насильство не вторгаються ззовні, а є частиною життя кожної спільноти). Загалом, форма прекрасна, а дитячий фольклор - це взагалі безмежно цікава тема.

З мінусів: очевидно, це дуже класні питання - як і чому функціонує це таємне дитяче знання, втілене у дитячому фольклорі? від чого воно захищає? як воно передається? але та реалістична штука, яка лежить у центрі оповідання, і від якої нібито мусить захищати все це магічне мислення, виглядає значно менш реалістичною, аніж навіть, власне кажучи, фантастичний елемент. Мені легше повірити у тигрів-перевертнів, ніж у цілком нормальну спільноту з масово нормалізованим сексуальним насильством над дітьми. Причому якби фарби не згущували настільки, було б ок, бо дитинство з його безвладністю над своїм життям і нерозумінням законів великого світу - це й так страшний період, можна й не нагнітати.

[daph pink ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Regretfully, even though I like the folktale aspects, I didn't find the other parts to be all that engaging.

[Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horror Research Paper
Review of the Amazon Original Kindle eBook released simultaneously with the Audible Original audiobook (February 24 2022).

Machado's Bloody Summer is more of a supernatural horror than the 'terror of nature' stories which are the overall theme of the Trespass collection. In a future year of 2064, the researcher is examining the tragic events of July 13, 1999 in the town of Never-Again, Pennsylvania. The adults of the town had been massacred by what was thought to be escaped tigers from a local wildlife farm. All of the town's children disappeared. There is a lone survivor who is interviewed who may hold the key to the mystery.

The tale is structured as a faux research paper, initially examining clues to the events by recording the lyrics of the local children's hand and clapping games which allude to the tragedy. There are copious footnotes (irritatingly not appearing on the same kindle e-page as they refer to). References to actual research such as History of the Lackawanna Valley by Horace Hollister and the fairy tale related works of Kate Bernheimer are effectively mixed in with fake research papers such as those by a Dr. Lucinda Oren.

Machado builds effective suspense and a dawning realization of horror in this rather uniquely structured short story.

I previously enjoyed Machado's short story collection Her Body and Other Parties (2018).

Bloody Summer is one of six Amazon Kindle eBooks released February 24, 2022 as part of their Amazon Original Trespass collection of short stories which "Take a walk on the wild side. When nature gets up close and personal, it isn’t always pretty. A fallen tree sparks a poisonous feud between neighbors. A child searches the darkness for the gleam of a tiger’s teeth. A woman holds off a colony of oddly relentless prairie dogs. In unsettling stories that range from horror to magical realism, award-winning authors lay bare the secrets hidden in the land."

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think part of why my enjoyment was not as high on this one as it has been with other short stories by Carmen Maria Machado was that I was extremely confused about when the story began since it is framed as a research article. I think that speaks to how well that framework was done that I thought it was a nonfiction introduction for so long. I do think on re-read this would probably be a low 4 star short story for me cause I could focus on the themes and ominous story and less on wondering if I was in the story yet.

[Netanella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tiger folklore in Lackawanna county, Pennsylvania, childhood hand games, and a Bloody Summer where a bunch of locals are killed by tigers, who have mysteriously disappeared along with the town's children. I enjoyed the academic research narrative feel of the beginning. And I wanted the story to be longer, more fleshed out. Very, very good.

[Melanie Schneider · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wie schafft es Machado eigentlich immer und immer wieder, mich zu überraschen, obwohl ich von ihr nur noch ungewöhnliches und überragend geniales erwarte?

[Anomaly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trigger Warning for sexual assault of minors, humans being mauled by animals, death and/or abduction of children, and suicide. This review discusses, briefly, these elements of the story.

My first thought when reading this was "wow this sounds so bloody pretentious!" Though I couldn't intially place why I was so revolted by the writing style, it became clearer when I encountered footnotes. (Yes, actual footnotes to provide extra, in-universe context!) Once I realized this was in the format of a faux documentary essay, the pompousness of the tone made sense. Unfortunately, however, making sense does not equal suddenly becoming tolerable or entertaining.

I only endured this one because it was so short and I was a little curious what the so-called "Bloody Summer" entailed, but I feel like it was a complete waste of my time. The dry (and often self-superior) tone of the format does no justice to what otherwise might have been an intriguing or creepy idea for a horror story.

There's so much potential! As it stands, however, there's little to no intrigue and the detached handling of heavy topics makes this story almost seem exploitative or disrespectful of them. See, if I'm being completely honest, I have no clue what I just read or what its point was - if there even was one - and that is not a good feeling to have after being subjected to a tale that includes (in faux-nonfiction fashion) topics such as widespread child molestation, public mockery and shaming of a potential assault victim, and young people committing suicide.

In fact, the only time any of this is covered with any amount of emotional impact it's to emphasize the narrator's shock and horror at learning of what happened. No time is taken to even mention the impact on the victims, one of whom speaks of the events in a detached way in an interview. It's all about how horrified and sick the interviewer (also the narrator) feels - dramatically jumping up, fleeing, and all.

Do I really need to explain why this leaves me feeling uneasy and wondering what the point of including these sorts of elements even was?

Idk, man, this is a hot mess that uses the guise of academia to try and get away with extreme uncertainties, contradictory details, and a complete and utter lack of depth. That's the most I can gather from what I read, though admittedly my eyes glazed over at some point while reading due to the dull format. The most interesting part is the end, in the form of an interview transcript, but even that is a very low bar considering the issues mentioned above regarding subject matter. There is no sense of comeuppance, no sense of mystique, not even a sense of gravitas because we don't know any of the characters and the writing is so detached.

If the author was aiming to somehow make supernatural maybe-shapeshifting tigers uninteresting and tales of child victims getting revenge incredibly boring, this was an astounding success! But since I doubt those were the goals, I'm going to count this one as a dud. All it did was bore me for the first two-thirds then annoy me in the final stretch.

I wish this were so much more than what it is, because I can see the story begging to be told but it's held back by the format.

[Gerhard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written like a scientific enquiry, replete with footnotes, this kind of fizzles out at the end. Machado creates a burden of expectation that the impossibly ambiguous ending simply collapses under.

[Luba · Rating 5 out of 5]

carmen maria machado erzählt einfach eine horrorgeschichte in der form eines wissenschaftlichen beitrags und das ist so clever!!
vor allem wie das unaussprechliche über die tarnsformation verhandelt und so implizit ins zentrum gerückt wird, ohne dass die figuren explizit darauf eingehen ist so beeindruckend gut gemacht

[Madalyn (Novel Ink) · Rating 4 out of 5]

i will read anything carmen maria machado writes until the end of time

[Grapie Deltaco · Rating 5 out of 5]

I SO BADLY WISH THIS WERE A FULL LEMGTH NOVEL!!! A FILM!! A LIMITED SERIES! PLEASE!!!!!

Fascinatingly written from a journalist’s perspective, we explore the history and build up to a town’s bizarre tiger massacre that left hundreds of adults dead and dozens of children missing without a trace.

I am left with a million questions and desperately need to know more about this town, the true explanation behind the tigers, backgrounds on all the missing children, and (most of all) the story of Anna.

It’s not a want, it’s a need.

CW: recurring focus on and mentions of mass murder, brief implication of childhood sexual abuse

[Ness (Vynexa) · Rating 4 out of 5]

For what is a child but a caged tiger, something that should have never been trapped in the first place?

Never knew that a story about hand games based on Tigers could be this good. But of course, it’s by Carmen Maria Machado, so it’s going to be super entertaining and feel so real.

⭐️ 4 STARS ⭐️

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some trigger warnings for this one: implied child abuse and SA, directly discussed sa/rape.

I liked how this was formatted like research into a town's history of bloody events, but I do feel like it needed a bit more of the story, and a better connection of the events with the "hand games."

[Vanessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

The format was not the jam.

[Summer McFadden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven’t read anything like this before. It was so interesting and I kept forgetting this isn’t a real situation lol

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one was creepy and good. I'm holding back from giving it a full five stars because, like many in this collection, I'm not exactly sure what just happened here. But Machado, unlike Vandermeer, clearly knows the answer, and provided enough pieces so that you can be sure you're making an educated guess. And the rest of the story was strong enough that any confusion didn't end up mattering very much.

This one is actually written in the form of an ethnography by a researcher who is never named, who is interested in the prevalence of childhood hand games/playground games specific to the region of Never-Again, PA, and the historical predominance of tigers in that area, all leading up to the Bloody Summer (which I won't explain here bc spoilers).

I really liked the angle that Machado approached this story from. The scholarly framework she gave it lends the frankly very strange story she created credence, and makes it seem all the more bizarre at the same time. I would honestly have liked this to be much longer.

[4.5 stars]

[Hannah Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hello I would like to request another carmen maria machado short story collection pls for my health

[Kai Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

CW: rape/sexual assault, child abuse, suicide. all referenced/alluded to, but nothing explicitly/graphically/fully on page. violence, blood

this was outstanding. I'm amazed something so short could have such a heart punch. I love the writing style, the story laid out like a nonfictional one. like a paper, an interview. it's all so so good.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining listening✨🎉

This kindle ebook novella is from my Kindle Unlimited account six of six

A tale about tigers killing people.

I would recommend this series and various authors to readers of relationships novels 🙂😚 2025 👒😉

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bloody Summer shines in the narrative framing of the story. The author presents the tale as if it is a research paper, and it is quite a clever way of presenting the information and keeping it compact. Unfortunately, and despite the folktale elements that I enjoy, the rest was not particularly interesting to me.

[anotherbritinthewall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the academic paper vibe; it kind of works as containment of the fantastical plot. Idk but these short stories are just really nice and they do help me get back into reading whenever I struggle with it.

[Hannah (hngisreading) · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Hands or claws? Paws or feet? Beds are empty, bodies near. Children missing, tigers here.”

Machado is SUCH a good storyteller. For like half the introduction I was questioning if this was a true story; it was THAT well done.

Maybe go into this one blindly? I did & it was a surreal reading experience.

[Royce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carmen Maria Machado, like Shirley Jackson before her, writes a tale in which the reader thinks the story is heading one way, when, all of a sudden, one word, or in this case, one year, tips the reader that this story is heading in a completely different direction. Once the reader realizes the tale is fiction, it’s eye-opening in the best possible way.

Carmen Maria Machado’s twisty horror tale traces the appearance of the wild tigers roaming in a small town in Pennsylvania, from the lines of hand-clapping game rhymes. The lines from the hand-clapping games provide clues to the origins of the tigers AND the horrible crimes the tigers commit in the town. The town is cleverly named, “Never-Again,” because the tigers eat almost all the children in this community, except the one who many years later tells the story of what happened. One hopes it “Never-Again” happens. Brilliant short story by the remarkably gifted writer, Carmen Maria Machado. Highly recommend.

[Andy Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Told with an innovative style, similar to the format of a research paper, and set in rural Pennsylvania, this is a folktale based around a children’s hand-clap song that refer to centuries of inexplicable tiger sightings. It works well.

It is part of the Trespass collection, a collection of wild stories about animal instincts, human folly, and survival from some of America’s most famous writers of horror.