Throughout Mannequins, reader affection for Sawyer is guiltily shoved under the rug and ready to reemerge at the bloodiest of times. Sawyer’s rationalizing process augments both the novella’s horror and the reader’s ability to empathize with him. His depiction as a teenager prone to justifications of evils as he navigates Manny’s revenge treads reader disdain for his character, a risk Jones aptly mitigates through Sawyer’s own acknowledgement of his tendency to draw patterns and motivations where there are none. Much of the tension in the novel comes through Sawyer’s role as narrator, whose language is an artful combination of adolescent indifference and passion. Jones never falls into the trap of shock value rather, his careful writing saturates such moments in something far more disturbing than shock. The introspective nature of the novella invites his readers to anticipate the next move, a trick that heightens the pleasurable dread of reading Mannequins. It has everything he does so well: compelling characters, evocative descriptions and settings, a narrative style that hooks you in immediately, and a plot that will leave you on edge and trembling.In his threading of the plot, Jones gradually unspools Sawyer’s psychology.

If you’ve never read Stephen Graham Jones before, this is a really good place to start.

His voice is familiar yet unique we’ve all known a kid like Sawyer, and Jones does a good job tugging on that recognition and then twisting it into something awful. Jones crafts the main character, Sawyer, with messy precision. It’s also about a young man losing his tether on reality. This isn’t just a story about a mannequin that comes to life and starts killing people. The trap has sprung, the knife has cut, and the blood is flowing. By that point, however, it’s much too late. The further you get into the story, the more you realize those little moments earlier on that felt off or odd or jarring were actually big clues as to what is about to happen. The book begins innocently enough – with a teenage prank – but quickly spirals into bloody chaos. While the latter is much shorter than the former, it’s just as creepy and chilling as everything else Jones writes.

He has two books out this year, The Only Good Indians (which was so unsettling I had to stop listening to the audiobook at work and wait for my hold to come through at the library for the print copy) and Night of the Mannequins. And on top of that, he’s incredibly prolific. Who doesn’t love Stephen Graham Jones? The man writes horror like no one else.

The night of the mannequins