Never Whistle at Night is an Indigenous dark fiction anthology that will send spiny beings into your dreams and make you hyper-aware of the things that move in the shadows. With contributions from fantastic authors such as Cherie Dimaline, Tommy Orange and Waubgeshig Rice — whose newest book Moon of the Turning Leaves is coming out mid-October — and Rebecca Roanhorse — whose novel Black Sun is a Tiktok darling — this anthology is gross, pointy, and absolutely delightful.
I found myself approaching each story with the thrill of a spooky season advent calendar. The subtitle of this anthology — “Are you Ready to be Un-Settled?” — perfectly describes the stories you’ll find if you dare step into the worlds that this book contains.
The wide variety of body horror and general day-to-day terror featured in this anthology makes it one that should be approached with open eyes (in other words, check the content warnings) as well as open minds. It easily joins Taaqtumi, Moon of the Crusted Snow, and The Other Ones in the category of Indigenous horror that will make your blood run cold. I had an ongoing tally of my favourite stories to highlight in this review but it ended up being unreasonably long, which says a lot for the quality and quantity of stories in this collection.
For me, the best of the bunch were “The Longest Street in the World,” which was sad and horrible and funny, like a Tarantino script with supernatural elements, as well as “The Scientist’s Horror Story” and “Collections,” which were both straight-up chilling.
This collection brings together some of the most prominent Indigenous authors of our day spanning across and beyond North America, including the North’s very own Richard Van Camp.“Scariest. Story. Ever.” by Van Camp is actually the one story I have yet to read from this collection. He asks in the foreword that we as readers wait for snow on the ground before reading his contribution, or else the beings from the story may learn where to find us. I remember when I was a child that I’d have to trick-or-treat in a costume that could fit over my snowsuit, so (weather provided) by the time this book hits the shelves you’ll be able to read this whole thing through as ravenously as I have.
Never Whistle at Night is a series of short stories with sharp edges and teeth. So many teeth. And I couldn’t put it down.