Growing Things and Other Stories

4.5/5 stars!

Paul Tremblay first appeared on my radar with his book A HEAD OF FULL GHOSTS. Then came DISAPPEARANCE AT DEVIL'S ROCK, which really impressed me. He followed that up with CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD, which broke my heart. Now, here he is with a solid collection of stories that I ADORED.

GROWING THINGS is a hefty volume of tales, mostly told already in other publications, but they were almost all new to me. Among them, these stood out the most:

HER RED RIGHT HAND Something about this tale grabbed my imagination. There is a surprise well known figure comic figure within, but for me it was the young artist drawing the story that affected me the most.

NOTES FROM THE DOG WALKERS seemed like an experimental form of story telling show more to me, and as such, I was carried along from the normality of the day to day dog walker down into the heart of madness. This tale totally worked for me and I wanted to applaud when I finished.

NINETEEN SNAPSHOTS OF DENNISPORT Here is another story in which the way the tale is related is different and fascinating. Who doesn't sit down with their vacation pictures at some point or another? It's within these types of normal situations where Mr. Tremblay really shines. He takes those normal day to day things and twists them around...it's really something to see.

WHERE WE WILL ALL BE Here we find another experimental tale and once again, it worked quite well. A young man wakes up and finds his parents confused and talking nonsense about how they all have to go "where we will all be." That's all I'm going to say because I don't want to ruin it, but I find myself still thinking about Zane and his family.

THE ICE TOWER I don't know what the heck was going on in this story, at least not for sure, but once again, Mr. Tremblay wove his spell around me, and I was immediately entranced.

A HAUNTED HOUSE IS A WHEEL ON WHICH SOME ARE BROKEN A tour through the home where you grew up with your family. Top that with a "Choose your own adventure" feel and you have this unique tale that turned around within itself and surprised me.

IT WON'T GO AWAY A few days after his brother's suicide, a man receives a letter from the deceased. Once again, the story twists and turns and before you know it, you are miles away from where you started.

I guess I'll leave it off here because I'm discovering that I can go on and on about this collection.

Usually, weird fiction doesn't work that well for me. While I can appreciate and enjoy ambiguous stories, certain authors considered masters of the form leave me a bit cold. (Robert Aickman, I'm looking at you!) I am unsettled by and enjoy the work of Tom Ligotti, but it often comes across as too nihilistic for my tastes. In this volume, Paul Tremblay appears to master the form, but in his own unique and brave style.

That's not to say this collection features only weird tales, because it doesn't. What it does feature is an author willing to experiment with all different types of dark fiction and nearly every one of them was a beauty to behold!

My highest recommendation!

*Thank you to Edelweiss, NetGalley, and to William Morrow for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.* show less

This review can also be found on my blog.

No one is more disappointed than me that I didn’t absolutely love this collection. After reading A Head Full of Ghosts, I knew Tremblay would become one of my favorite horror authors. It took me way too long to pick up another one of his books, but my conflicted experience Growing Things certainly won’t make me give up on loving his work. Here is a list of the stories, as well as my individual rating for each:

Growing Things 4/5
Swim Wants to Know If It’s as Bad as Swim Thinks 3/5
Something About Birds 4.5/5
The Getaway 4/5
Nineteen Snapshots of Dennisport 3/5
Where We Will All Be 2.5/5
The Teacher 4/5
Notes for “The Barn in the Wild” 4.5/5
_____ 3/5
Our Town’s Monster 2/5
A Haunted House Is a show more Wheel upon Which Some Are Broken 4/5
It Won’t Go Away 4/5
Notes from the Dog Walkers 2/5
Further Questions for the Somnambulist 2/5
The Ice Tower 3/5
The Society of the Monsterhood 2/5
Her Red Right Hand 2.5/5
It’s Against the Law to Feed the Ducks 4/5
The Thirteenth Temple 4/5

I’m the baseball pitch that stops before home. I’m an empty notebook. I’m half the distance to the wall. I’m the video with an ending I won’t ever watch.

That comes to an average of 3.26, which I rounded up to 3.5. The collection certainly wasn’t bad, but there were just enough stories I didn’t get along with to make it a less-than-spectacular reading experience. There was a lot to appreciate here. I found Tremblay’s meta and self-referential tendencies to be quite fun and look forward to tying bits here to his other works as I make my way through them. There is even a notes section at the end that includes tidbits -- inspirations, writing processes, etc. -- about many of the works. It was quite insightful and added a lot to the experience for me.

Time is not an arrow. It is a bottomless bag in which we collect and place things that will be forgotten.

I think this collection will work well for those who like authors to play around with their writing. As I mentioned above, some of the pieces are meta and Tremblay definitely isn’t afraid to poke fun at himself. Horror fans in general will probably enjoy this, but I can see it appealing to those who aren’t diehard genre readers as well. I think the nature of short story collections usually mean that everyone can find something they’ll like.

I used to hope that when I died I’d go to some kind of afterlife where I’d instantly know all these weird statistics like how many heartbeats I had in my life or how many breaths or how many times I said the word “tomato” or how many people thought I was a good person or how many holes there were in the ceiling tiles of my dentist’s office.

Overall, while this didn’t quite live up to expectations, I still enjoyed it and will be recommending it to others! show less

I would give this only two stars based on the content of the stories. But the amazing formats and creativity that the tales are delivered in, deserved at least one half more star!

To begin, this collection is creepy to read during the current global pandemic. Several stories herein seem to be "end of the world" types, like "It's Against the Law to Feed the Ducks", so if you are freaked out right now, maybe skip this collection till the quarantines have passed...

The stories themselves bugged me. Most have dramatic, no-ending endings, where nothing is revealed, and no reasons are given. After a half dozen of these, I was more than a wee bit tired of that. Also, most of the stories have no in-story reasons given for what is happening, or show more why it's happening. Same reaction from me, boo.

Now, the structure of the stories is what is amazing in here! The author tries out so many different formats to deliver his tales! Styles include an interview, stories told in the context of 19 snapshots, a journal, and even a "Choose Your Own Adventure" type haunted house story! Though it was not a story that I liked, "Notes From the Dog Walkers" might have been the most original style of all! And I also didn't like it, but the style of "Further Questions for the Somnambulist" was super creative! I don't write, but this book would be a great resource on how to present different short stories for those who do!

These are "high brow" horror stories, and if you like your causes and endings to be ambiguous, you'll like this book! show less

This book is going to be polarising from loving to loathing it, and all the levels between. Some stories felt as though they needed more of a resolution. Others read like a metaphor. Then there’s comes the “What the hell did I just read?” portion. A few certainly linger in the mind. I loved three — Where We All Will Be, Her Red Right Hand, It’s Against the Law to Feed the Ducks — liked others, hated none, but felt somewhat indifferent to a few. These stories are experimental, even slipstream in parts, and unique to this author’s style.

I’m a fan of author Paul Tremblay and his novels, so when I saw he had a short story collection I was eager to read it. ⁣
These short stories are a delightful mix of horror, the supernatural, paranormal, and basic fiction. The first story “Growing Things” kept me on the edge of my seat, and I was disappointed when it ended. I would love to read an entire novel based off of the premise he introduced. My other favorites were “Swim Wants to Know”, where events are being told by an unreliable narrator, leaving you unsure as to if the events in the background are actually occurring or not. “A Haunted House” is unique in that it is set up like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, where you follow a woman to her childhood home. show more “It Won’t Go Away” reminded me strongly of Stephen King, which is a compliment to the author. I also would read an entire novel based on the story “It’s Against the Law to Feed the Ducks” as it features a 5 year old boy as the narrator, with an unknown apocalyptic event happening around him. ⁣
There were some stories that I didn’t find as intriguing as the rest, and found myself skimming them. But overall I enjoyed the book as a whole. ⁣ show less

You either enjoy short stories by authors whose longer works you usually read or you don't. I happen to love a good short story collection, and this is a great one. Not only do we get some new tales from the author of HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS and CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD, but we also get some tales that directly tie into those two novels.

Not every story in the collection stood out to me. Are they all scary? No. Are they even all weird? Not really. Nor do they have to be. Just because one primarily writes in horror does not limit one exclusively to that genre. Short story collections give authors a chance to stretch their legs and explore.

My personal favorites from this collection were "The Teacher" and "Notes From the Dog Walkers." I show more thought the choose-your-own-adventure styling of "A Haunted House Is a Wheel..." was interesting, but a little too gimmicky. Otherwise, I look forward to future Tremblay collections.

Wonderful work. show less

There are some damn fine stories in this novel, a couple of which were quite thrilling and/or made me thrill with horror. One was too weird for me, which was fine. A few were totally like ‘wtf...?’ And that’s fine too.
The narrators of the audiobook were Sean Crisden, Graham Halstead, Cassandra Campbell, Sarah Naughton, Michael Crouch, and Caitlin Kelly. The afterward being read (I believe) by the author.

3.5-4 stars, and recommended.