Stories by Brian Evenson
September 10, 2024 • 5.5 x 8.25 • 256 pages • 9781566897099
“Perhaps tomorrow I will wake up another person. Perhaps tomorrow I will wake up not a person at all.”
From the “master of literary horror” (GQ) comes a collection of new stories tracing the limits and consequences of artificial intelligence and “post-human” relationships. Populated by twins stepping into worlds of absence, bears who lick their cubs into creation, and artificial beings haunted by their less-than-human nature, each page sketches a world where our all-too-real feelings of isolation and ecological dread take on an otherworldly tinge.
In Good Night, Sleep Tight, Brian Evenson deftly weaves ethical dilemmas, maternal warmth, and echoes of apocalypse into his most tender, disquieting book yet.
About the Author
Praised by Peter Straub for going “furthest out on the sheerest, least sheltered narrative precipice,” Brian Evenson has won the World Fantasy Award, The International Horror Guild Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award. He is also the recipient of three O. Henry Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was a finalist for the Ray Bradbury Prize.
Praise for Good Night, Sleep Tight
A Southwest Review Must-Read Book of 2024
A Parade Best New Halloween Book of 2024
A SIBA Read This Next! September Pick
A Millions Most Anticipated Book of 2024
A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2024
“This collection of unsettling stories blurs the lines between dream and reality, life and death, human and not, Bradbury and Borges.” —Kirkus Reviews
"The prolific master of the eerie and strange can terrify and delight at any length, but his story collections are always a feast for any reader. If you’ve never read Evenson but are a fan of George Saunders, Ray Bradbury, Jorge Luis Borges… now’s the time to rectify your mistake." —Literary Hub
“A master class in ‘‘wrongness,’’ in existential dread.” —Ian Mond, Locus
“It is practically impossible to do, after cracking open any collection of stories by the horror master Evenson, what the title of this latest collection asks of its readers. This book is already haunting you even before you’ve opened it.” —The Millions
“Evenson is probably your favorite horror writer’s favorite horror author.” —Liberty Hardy, Book Riot
“Tracing the surreal edges of our existence and displaying the author’s trademark sense of severe isolation and paranoia, Good Night, Sleep Tight offers increasingly fraught moral quandaries and coming disasters with every story. Master of the short form scary story Brian Evenson delivers another pitch perfect collection.” —Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books
“A gathering of stories that worries at a theme, pulls at some cosmic thread you’d just as soon stay un-pulled. Good night? Sleep tight? Good luck with that.” —Andy Davidson, Southwest Review
“Evenson’s clear, fluid, perfectly balanced prose is a joy to read while deceptively simple, streamlined plots are hiding abysses of dark portents.” —Dejan Ognjanović, Rue Morgue
“The Polish philosopher Leszek Kołakowskim once wrote that “it is perhaps better for us to totter insecurely on the edge of an unknown abyss than simply to close our eyes and deny its existence.” Brian Evenson, in his masterful stories, whatever combination of weird fiction, horror, and science fiction they might be; leaves his readers tottering exactly there.” —Zachary Gillan, Los Angeles Review of Books
“Good Night, Sleep Tight is a masterclass in the art of suspense and psychological terror. Evenson whispers each story in a way that penetrates the very marrow of your bones, leaving you questioning each creak and groan in your own home—this collection lingers long after the lights have been turned out." —George Dunn, FanFiAddict
“Evenson manages to tell stories that are fresh and new while remaining anchored firmly in the rich history of genre traditions. Read this. It will scare you. Then read it again. It’ll be scarier the second time.” —David Lewis, Strange Horizons
“Evenson’s stories of AI gone rogue, decimated environments, and our unspoken nightmares channel some of the greats: Hemingway, Wilde, and Asimov to frighten and exhilarate.” —Christina Pfeiffer, uncomfortablydark.com
“A collection written not to bring the reader to satisfying conclusions but to amplify the dread of unfinished business.” —Booklist
“Good Night, Sleep Tight illuminates strange and dark parts of our fragile existence. Without a doubt, the stories are frightening, but they are so gripping, so unexpected, that one can neither look away nor avoid seeing things differently.” —Emily Webber, Necessary Fiction
“Within these pages: boundless imagery and virtuosic range. Evenson seems to have sequenced the stories like he would the songs of an album: thematic handoffs that become echoes, one tone harmonizing with another. While Good Night, Sleep Tight harbors moments of legitimate terror, it’s Evenson’s powers of emotional observation that will make you gasp. And the unmatched artistry with which he renders them. This book is more than a gem: it’s a collection of precious stones.” —Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box
“Brian Evenson’s new collection, Good Night, Sleep Tight, is nineteen installments of idiosyncratic, weird genius. I can’t think of a better practitioner of the short story at work today.” —Jeffrey Ford, Edgar Award winning author of The Girl in the Glass
"Peeling back the thin veil that separates our humanity from the incomprehensible and the decadently weird, Brian Evenson crafts a masterful and utterly beguiling collection of literary unease with Good Night, Sleep Tight. With a pervasive sense of isolation and existential worry leaking from story to story, this disturbing collection proves why Evenson remains the undisputed master of short literary horror fiction." —Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
Praise for Brian Evenson
Winner of the 2020 World Fantasy Award for best collection
Winner of the 2019 Shirley Jackson Award for a single-author collection
"His stories are deeply terrifying and so troubling that they linger in your mind long after you've read them." —R.L. Stine
"Brian Evenson is one of my favorite living horror writers." —Carmen Maria Machado
"There is not a more intense, prolific, or apocalyptic writer of fiction in America than Brian Evenson." —George Saunders
"Like with Borges or Kafka, every one of Brian Evenson’s stories are a whole world distilled down to a few pages, and rendered in a pointillism that feels not just abstract, but cosmic, yet is gritty all the same, and leaves a distinct, bloody residue in your mind, in your heart. And then you can no longer look at the world the way you used to." —Stephen Graham Jones
"Evenson is one of our best living writers—regardless of genre." —NPR
"Evenson’s fiction is equal parts obsessive, experimental, and violent. It can be soul-shaking." —The New Yorker