Review: Never Whistle At Night

Unfortunately it’s been a few months since I read this, so I just don’t remember it as well as I would have liked to (though that’s in part because some of the stories just aren’t terribly memorable). So I can’t do a detailed review of each story. The three that I remember most clearly are “Kushtuka” (Mathilda Zeller), “Navajos Don’t Wear Elk Teeth” (Conley Lyons), and “Snakes Are Born in the Dark” (D.H. Trujillo). Each one carried a nice eeriness to it, each in a very distinct way.

But oddly, I actually think the major highlight of this book was the foreword by Stephen Graham Jones. I don’t really have the words to describe it, but it is easily the part of the book that has stayed with me the most. There’s an intensity to it, a really excellent take on the horror genre, and a fascinating connection between Indigenous history and horror. All the stories were fine to read, but the introduction is the absolute most important part. If you don’t read anything else, read that.

Otherwise, what this book does really well and what I think is crucially important is highlighting the huge variety of Indigenous American experiences, both in terms of social background and the cultural differences between different tribes. We see Indigenous main characters from many different tribes, gender identities, socioeconomic statuses, and so on. It’s a variety that really isn’t present in most other media and that is so often flattened and reduced into “the Indigenous American experience”.