FAMILY CURSE FIELD NOTEBOOKS

An American family ruminates on its bleak history in this chilling debut novelette.

Virgil Sykes tackles the grueling job of cleaning out their late aunt’s attic. While staying at the ancestral home, they start a journal and write about their family and its generations of children who’ve mysteriously vanished. All Virgil knows is that unexplained lights pop up in the creepy nearby woods. But perhaps answers lie in the family’s writings, starting with Aunt Virginia’s diaries, which date back a few decades to 1993. She recounts her sister’s disappearance and later spotting a strange child just outside the woods staring at the house. Mort, Virginia’s uncle, wrote in his 1960s “UFO manifesto” that aliens were responsible for abducting the little ones. In his notes from the 19th century, Silas Sykes blames the devil residing among the trees. While the villain is unknown, one thing is certain—the children vanish and never return. Plys equips this compact, spine-tingling tale with a memorable cast. For example, Virgil, who is nonbinary, endures discrimination, like locals eying them simply for their appearance, and adjunct Harvard professor Mort dabbles in LSD and sexual harassment. But what really sets this novelette apart is its diverting format; family members leave comments on their ancestors’ journals, like Virgil’s sticky notes and Virginia’s footnotes. By the time readers get to Silas’ manuscript, they’re treated to a variety of hilarious, snarky asides and comments on others’ comments. Still, the eerie narrative tone remains. Virgil conducts their investigations at night while someone/thing periodically knocks at the front door. Despite a fairly open ending, Plys drops hints along the way as to what’s really been happening all those years.

A spooky, darkly humorous, and cleverly written story about an uncanny family.