Mapping the Interior

Bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones has already shown he knows how to write a mean novel, as well as a great short story. In Mapping the Interior he shows off his chops in the arena of the novella.

One night Junior thinks he sees something in the darkness of his trailer house. It looks like a person; it looks quite a bit like his old man, which is impossible because he drowned years ago back when they were on the reservation. What is birthed as a tiny hope grows to a full on obsession as he begins studying every square inch of his house. He learns some interesting things, like how it’s bigger than it appears. Also his brother Dino has started acting really weird, and seems to be getting worse as time passes. Junior thinks it might be connected.

Jones shows incredible talent for cramming so much story and emotion into barely a hundred pages. He makes you question what it means to wonder and to forgive, and also how far you will go when it comes to family. To Junior, family is everything, and it won’t be till the very end that you see how far he will go.