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"This is the way werewolf stories go. Never any proof. Just a story that keeps changing, like it's twisting back on itself, biting its own stomach to chew the poison out."
I finished this book on Friday, May 13, early in the morning, after staying up late to read to the end. What can I say, it's the type of book that demands to be read under the moon.
It's a pleasure to sink into genre fiction, and I believe it when they say Stephen Graham Jones is a master of modern horror. This book balances between a good old fashioned portrait of a monster, while also telling the coming-of-age story of a scrappy protagonist you can't help but root for. I also think this book provides a compelling allegory for what it means to be outcast in America, lending it more heft than your typical werewolf fantasy tale.
One of my favorite things that Jones does is introducing a perfectly innocuous detail and then excavating the chilling story behind it. For example, this book explains why it's dangerous when werewolves eat French fries (hint: it's not dangerous for the wolf). You also find out what it means for the protagonist's history that dogs don't go near his grandfather's house. Each of these details is a thread in a larger part of the story, weaving together seemingly episodic chapters and building to an ultimately satisfying conclusion.
This book never breaks character as an almost pulpy paperback, and yet I couldn't help but find endless parallels with particular American experiences — poverty in this country, or being undocumented, or being a fugitive, or being dispossessed of land and identity — any number of conditions manufactured by our modern world that push people to the very edges of society, living off desperation alone. For our protagonist and his aunt Libby and uncle Darren, "going wolf" is one of the reasons they don't fit, but it's also a fantasy escape, a way they're able to survive in an unforgiving landscape.
In the story, this family is constantly on the move, trying to get by on patchy low-income work, limited schooling, and scavenging for food. They can't manage certain aspects of their wolfy condition — existential dangers associated with having children, or dealing with silver poisoning. You find out later in the novel that there are ways to deal with these problems. Our characters, however, were cut off from this information. What Grandpa, Darren, and Libby do know about being a wolf is passed down carefully to the protagonist, with the urgency of imparting an education essential to survival.
I'm reading [b:An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States|57570731|An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States|Kyle T. Mays|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1617719403l/57570731._SY75_.jpg|90160083] by Kyle T. Mays at the moment, and Mays talks about loss of land as more than just not having a physical place to put down roots and call your own. It's also a forceful deprivation of space in which meaning and identity is made, preserved, and passed down. The experiences of the characters in this book feel very uprooted, very cut off from cultural knowledge and memory — something all too common among Indigenous people in modern day nations shaped by imperialism. I don't think this reading is too far off, given that Jones is a member of the Blackfeet Tribe, and writes explicitly about Indigenous experiences in his other novels.
The lack of access to werewolf reproductive healthcare is also hitting close to home at the moment — or at least, the pain these characters feel at not being able to rely on any kind of safety or certainty when it comes to having children is hitting close to home. The protagonist is haunted by his mother's death during childbirth (wolf birth?), and Darren swears not to form any kind of long-term attachment; the risk of having children isn't worth it.
There are many other parallels that can be found, and many ways to read the story. This book, in the words of David Bowie, "dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night."
Next, I'll be reading [b:My Heart Is a Chainsaw|55711617|My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Lake Witch Trilogy, #1)|Stephen Graham Jones|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1623264202l/55711617._SY75_.jpg|86884065] by Jones. It's his take on the slasher genre, and I found it in one of those little box libraries on a walk the other day. It felt like a great coincidence after just finishing Mongrels. Going by the first chapter, though, I'm going to be 100 times more creeped out by that book. Unlike Mongrels, Chainsaw might be one I confine to reading only by the light of day.