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smalltimereadsLittle Sister Death by William Gay was published by Dzanc Books.
I think Little Sister Death is successful in creating a myth and how things build up around it, and the impact local legends can have on the places they're set, and in conveying how a haunting can destroy a family. It does a good job at skipping around time periods, and depicting Binder's obsession and how it takes him away from his family. William Gay's prose is solid, and good at conveying the way people speak without getting too into writing out dialect.
Although the haunting is definitely real, as far as the book shows, there was a lot about it that was incredibly frustrating. I don't need everything to be neatly tied up, but the book introduced a number of threads that weren't even revisited again, or seemed to foreshadow things that would never come back. There was also some gender and race stuff I didn't love, but might have been "older dude author" stuff or might have been part of the story. I love folk tales and folk horror and metafiction, and wanted to enjoy this book, but it fell flat for me. The foreword was more interesting.
I think Little Sister Death is successful in creating a myth and how things build up around it, and the impact local legends can have on the places they're set, and in conveying how a haunting can destroy a family. It does a good job at skipping around time periods, and depicting Binder's obsession and how it takes him away from his family. William Gay's prose is solid, and good at conveying the way people speak without getting too into writing out dialect.
Although the haunting is definitely real, as far as the book shows, there was a lot about it that was incredibly frustrating. I don't need everything to be neatly tied up, but the book introduced a number of threads that weren't even revisited again, or seemed to foreshadow things that would never come back. There was also some gender and race stuff I didn't love, but might have been "older dude author" stuff or might have been part of the story. I love folk tales and folk horror and metafiction, and wanted to enjoy this book, but it fell flat for me. The foreword was more interesting.
