SPIN A BLACK YARN

A collection of odd tales by the author of Bird Box (2014) and other books.

Returning to his made-up city of Samhattan, Michigan, Malerman offers five stories about pitiable lost souls. In “Doug and Judy Buy the House Washer™,” a bickering couple of considerable wealth tries out “the most luxurious item on the market,” shutting themselves inside a large glass tube in their living room as the house and all its contents are submerged in miracle cleaning goop. As revealing letters and other secret items swoosh up against the glass, they contest their troubled past—and, unable to shut off the machine, panic over their immediate future. In “The Jupiter Drop,” a rich man estranged from his family confronts his sad existence on an “interstellar thrill ride” that has him free-fall through Jupiter’s stormy atmosphere inside a luxury apartment with transparent walls and a “virtual mom.” “Half the House Is Haunted” charts the long-term psychological effects of an 8-year-old girl’s ceaseless efforts to scare her 6-year-old brother in their creepy home. In “Egorov,” the best of the stories, set around the turn of the 20th century in Samhattan’s Little Russia, two identical 24-year-old triplets use their ghostly presences to find the murderer of their brother. And in “Argyle,” a dying man celebrates getting through his life without acting on his murderous desires. “Is there any greater sign of a father's love than not drowning his children in the tub?” Malerman never runs out of wild premises or the knack for ridiculing the human condition à la Mad magazine. But these long stories reveal his tendency to drive his concepts into the ground. Most of them go on and on before petering out without a satisfying conclusion.

Boldly imagined scenarios, disappointing payoffs.