Review | Growing Things and Other Stories by Paul Tremblay

A collection of nineteen short stories that are surprising, suspenseful, apocalyptic, and at times, moving. A couple of stories, Growing Things and The Thirteenth Temple, have links to the author’s full-length novel, A Head Full of Ghosts, but you don’t have to read it first to fully appreciate the content.

Merry imagines the growing things gathered outside her door, weaved into a fist as big as their house. The leaves shake in unison and in rhythm, their collected rustling forming their one true voice.

If there is one word to describe Growing Things and Other Stories, it would be unsettling. Every story unsettles you, makes you float in that feeling of dread and unfamiliarity, even though on the surface these characters are people you recognise. They are fathers, mothers, students, teachers, authors, thieves, dog walkers. But behind the facade of ordinary lives, lurks something dark. At its core, the stories are about the struggle of living in a world that is cruel and filled with the unknown.

I read the author’s previous short stories collection In the Mean Time a few years ago and a couple of stories stood out for me then; The Teacher and It’s Against The Law To Feed The Ducks. These stories appear again in Growing Things and I’m happy to say rereading them has not diminished their impact. The Teacher is absolutely horrifying in its simplicity – it’s about a teacher who threatens his class with a video that hints at a terrible end. It’s Against The Law to Feed The Ducks is an apocalyptic tale from the point of view of an unknowing, innocent child and it’s beautifully bleak.

An impending catastrophe is a recurring theme, appearing also in the title story, Swim Wants To Know If It’s As Bad As Swim Thinks, Where We All Will Be, It Won’t Go Away and The Society of The Monsterhood. But each time the horror feels new, the situation feels fresh. While some readers might have a problem with the lack of information given, I didn’t find it impeded my reading. It’s enough to know the world might be ending and the worst is already happening. The question is, how to survive? It’s what these characters ask themselves, and they can only deal with their predicament the best they can. Even if it means losing themselves in the end.

Other notable stories are Nineteen Snapshots of Dennisport, a family vacation gone wrong told in a photo-framing narrative; A Haunted House Is A Wheel Upon Which Some Are Broken, a choose-your-own-adventure flashback through a house full of memories; Notes From The Dog Walkers, an increasingly unhinged, meta-commentary in epistolary format and The Thirteenth Temple, a touching, unnerving tale within a tale. I really appreciate how families are portrayed in this collection. From the loving to the damaged to the grieving, sometimes it’s our loved ones who scare us the most.

An entertaining, chilling collection, I stopped reading halfway through at midnight because I didn’t want to have nightmares! If you’re looking for stories that scare but also make you feel, I highly recommend this book!

I received a review copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Growing Things is out now!

About the author: Paul Tremblay

Photo by Mitchell Orr