Midnight Somewhere

Most of the stories in Johnny Compton’s Midnight Somewhere were published before in magazines, anthologies, or podcasts, and my guess is his story was one of the darkest, bleakest, and/or saddest of the lot because these were bleak.

They were good, a surprisingly strong collection from beginning to end, just dark, with themes of vengeance, trauma, murder - though there were some occasional moments of humor, the humor was usually - say it with me - also dark. I’m thinking especially of the reveal in Doctor Bad Eyes Is at the Top of the Stairs Again, which was one of my favorites in the collection, even though it gave me a Gene Simmons earworm, “ain’t no haint gonna run me off!” 🎶

Two more highlights for me were I Caught a Ghost in My Eye and He Used to Scare Me by Accident with their slightly twisted endings. These would both translate to exceptional short films with the ironic punches at end.

I will be thinking about The Merge Monster Incident for a while because as soon as I finished reading it, I could only think, there’s a new Appalachian cryptid for me to watch for when I’m driving through the hills.

I could go through almost every story and tell you why it’s one of my favorites, from the ultimate dad jokes in The Death Grip Challenge to the cosmic horror of A Devil We Used to Know, so I will just say, read this collection. There’s folklore and haunted houses and sports stories and twist endings and sad endings and something for every horror reader.

Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the review copy for my unbiased opinion.