Growing Things and Other Stories

A chilling collection that blurs the lines of psychological suspense, supernatural horror, and literary fiction, from the multiple- award-winning author of the national bestseller The Cabin at the End of the World and the acclaimed A Head Full of Ghosts Featuring nineteen pieces of short fiction, Growing Things and Other Stories is an exciting and disquieting glimpse into Paul Tremblay’s fantastically fertile imagination. In “The Teacher;” a Bram Stoker Award nominee for best short story, a student is forced to watch a disturbing video that will haunt and torment her and her classmates’ lives. Four men rob a pawnshop at gunpoint only to vanish, one by one, as they speed away from the crime scene in “The Getaway.” In “Swim Wants to Know If It’s as Bad as Swim Thinks;” a meth addict kidnaps her daughter from her estranged mother as their town is terrorized by a giant monster . . . or not. A young woman revisits her pretty childhood home and the ghosts of the past she cannot escape in “A Haunted House Is a Wheel upon Which Some Are Broken.” Joining these masterful works are stories linked to Tremblay’s previous novels. The tour de force metafictional novella “Notes from the Dog Walkers” deconstructs horror and publishing, possibly bringing in a character from A Head Full of Ghosts, all while serving as a prequel to Disappearance at Devil’s Rock. “The Thirteenth Temple” follows another character from A Head Full of Ghosts—Merry; who has published a tell-all memoir written years after the events of the novel. And the title story, “Growing Things;” a shivery tale loosely shared between the sisters in A Head Full of Ghosts, is told here in full. In this dazzling compendium, Tremblay explores the devastating poison of nostalgia and regret that infects us, the grim visions harbored in twisted minds that tempt and terrify us, and the stories we create for ourselves and whisper to others to keep the terror at bay. From global catastrophe to the demons inside our heads, he illuminates our primal fears and tormented nightmares in startlingly original fiction that leaves us unmoored. As he lowers the sky and yanks the ground from beneath our feet, we are compelled to contemplate the darkness inside our own hearts and minds—and remember that indeed, the world is full of monsters . . . of every shape and kind.