“Never Whistle at Night” is a dark fiction anthology series, each chapter containing a different story written by a different author. There are 26 different authors in total, all indigenous people from various tribes across America. Each of the stories revolves around Native American characters, telling stories of tradition and new, modern stories that reflect on the traumas inflicted upon Indigenous peoples for generations. In fact, the opening prologue of the novel starts with author Stephen Graham Jones referring to a talk he attended,during which the speaker told a story of painted riders showing up and crossing the road before disappearing. Jones goes on to explain that the corporeal and the spirit are different and that these riders are just one of the many ways that the world shows that there is more than meets the eye at times. He challenges the reader to acknowledge that and to lean into the idea that there is more than we know.
Some of the stories throughout the anthology explore topics that some authors fear ever broaching, including topics of gentrification, abuse and the colonization of people within the lens of horror. The authors do not hold back when discussing their tales of violence, gore and emotional traumas, leaving the reader with a long-lasting impression and more to think about. As a huge fan of horror media, the one story I will be discussing, called “White Hills,” affected me more than I originally thought it would, as the author dives into topics like racism towards Native Americans, misogyny and forced self-mutilation. In this short story, the main character, Marissa, is part Native American and married to a rich, white man.
She finds out that she is pregnant and as she goes to tell her husband the news, she makes an offhand comment about being “part-native,” which surprises and angers her husband. He forces her to go home, mentioning that he thought she “was just French” and that his mother would be visiting in the morning. When the mother-in-law shows up, she forces Marissa to come to a clinic where she is made to drink a smoothie containing strawberries, something she is highly allergic to, which in turn forces her to have a miscarriage. On the way back from the clinic, her husband mentions that he “never wanted kids” and that his mother would once again be by. This time however, the mother-in-law made comments regarding Marissa’s ethnicity and that the only way her son would stay is if she “got rid of the offending parts.” This story affected me due to the extreme racism exhibited toward the main character, leading to her being forced to either self-mutilate or return to poverty, an extreme example of bigotry that is often displayed towards people of color.
Overall, I highly recommend this anthology novel to those who want to know more about indigenous people’s struggles and those who enjoy horror. My one warning is that this novel dives into intense topics and doesn’t give trigger warnings in advance.
