A Cairn for Rearranging Your Bones
For those who prefer their bones rattled during spooky season
I have to admit that this Cairn topic is a bit outside my comfort zone. My wonderful newsletter cohost is very into spooky season and, I’m not usually one to read by theme, but in the spirit of trying new things, I’ve made a valiant attempt to gather some bits and bobs of past spooky reads to put together some themed cairns.
This particular newsletter was inspired by an absolutely bone rattling massage I received that our local shiatsu joint. As I was being told that my back is the tightest that my favorite Chinese auntie has ever seen, it got me to thinking about how certain experiences can shift your perspective. Plus rattling bones = skeletons = spooky season, get it? I’m trying, work with me here!
This weeks Cairn is comprised of books that have rattled my bones and left me with a not-wholly-unpleasant unsettling feeling. These are the novels that I think about often that I may even reference in casual conversation because a passage or a quote is relative to a topic at hand. I’m not traditionally one to reread books but I would say I can envision myself rereading any of these because I think it would be interesting for a future version of myself to consume the same mind-bending material and see if they have the same reaction or if there’s a different angle to these kaleidoscopic works that I might pickup on.
I Want You More by Swan Huntley
A young ghost writer in need of quick cash accepts a strange job writing the memoir of an internet famous food influencer that comes with a catch - the writer must stay with the influencer at her Hampton estate while writing the book. This is a true thriller and when I say I gasped out loud at several parts. All of that plus sumptuous descriptions of sprawling Hamptons property and food. TW: intimate partner violence
Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
After finishing St. John Mandel’s novel The Glass Hotel, I dove into her lesser known novels and found this gem. This novel follows Eli, the spurned lover of a mysterious woman, Lilia, who regularly just walks out of one life and into another due to being abducted as a child - by her father. Other characters include a private detective whose life work has been to follow Lilia and a tight rope walker / stripper. TW: child abuse and suicide
In a world obsessed with plastic surgery and injections, a procedure is invented to undo all plastic surgery a person has had at once. It’s controversial and dangerous and the government is shutting it down but the main character is scheduled to have her procedure done on the last day it is available. While waiting in her hotel room the night before, she think back to how she got to this state, starting with her first plastic surgery procedure when she was 18. TW: sexual assault
Comfort me With Apples by Catheryenne M. Valente
I’m at a loss of exactly how to describe this petite little novel without giving much away. I read it in one sitting. The main character, Sophia, was made for her husband and everything about her Stepford Wife life seems perfect. Or is it? To say I did not see the ending coming is an understatement.
I’ve been doing some rabbit hole diving around multiverses for a few years now and this novel scratches that itch in a way I didn’t expect. I hate to admit but this one sat in my TBR pile for far too long because the description just didn’t draw me in. Boy did I regret that once I got started! The main characters remain the same but each chapter is a different version of their lives and how they’re interconnected, in increasingly odd and sci-fi like scenarios.
A young woman in the Bay Area grapples with immoral and unethical demands that her tech position that barely pays her enough to live, all while dealing with an ever growing black hole that follows her around. This is an accurate comment on the societal inequalities that exist in wealthy cities like San Francisco as well as a skewering of the tech industry that hits close to home - I found myself nodding vigorously at many passages.
Honorable mention: Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson - not quite a bone-shaking read but I do think about this fictional account of the end of the world on a near daily basis.
Other spooky season media I’ve been consuming:
Appalachia hauntings - also worth a google! Reddit is a treasure trove of scary tales
Santa Cruz mountains and serial killers
Woman finds carpet with potential dead body in it while digging up her yard, TikTok goes nuts