Have You Read This? Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones

There are some works of fiction that defy mere summary. These kinds of works are so outlandish that

summarizing them for the benefit of someone unfamiliar with the author’s work is liable to raise some eyebrows. It is also one of the great things about speculative fiction. A story can have completely unreal elements as long as its grounded in some reality. Joe Lansdale demonstrated his understanding of this when he wrote "Bubba Ho-Tep," making his mummy-fighting, rest-home-dwelling Elvis a deeply nuanced protagonist. Stephen Graham Jones also understands the grounding within reality, as demonstrated by his novella Night of the Mannequins.

I am hesitant to go into details about the actual plot of this tale because half the fun of reading this is trying to wrap your mind around the sheer lunacy of the plot. I can go into some detail about what this book includes: mannequins (a given), slasher films, sacrifices, kaiju-sized monsters, coming of age. The story focuses on a group of friends whose relatively innocent prank involving a mannequin goes way out of control, leading to death, destruction, and the collapse of friendships.

The book is narrated by Sawyer, a very entertaining but unreliable narrator, who tells the tale from introducing his friends, to the prank that was the first domino, to the aforementioned death and destruction. Reading this made me wonder what talking to Stephen Graham Jones is like. Not so much when he narrates his fiction, but when he just tells a story, sitting in a bar, recalling what happened to a cousin’s cousin or a great aunt’s friend. He displays a definite gift for description in an almost stream-of-conscience way that creates a truly unique literary voice. This tale owes a lot to slashers and Godzilla but you don’t need to be an overwhelming fan of both genres to appreciate the craft Jones brings to this story.