[Review] Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones
Night of the Mannequins
By Stephen Graham Jones
Published by Tor.com
4 out of 5 Stars
After reading Jones’ short story All the Things He Called Memories, featured in Dark Stars: New Tales of Darkest Horror, I knew I was going to enjoy this novella. I was right.
I read this in one day, pretty much in one sitting, which goes to show how Jones’ prose is gripping and alluring. I got so entranced by the story that it became impossible to stop. What I love most about his writing is how well he navigates the first-person POV (Point of View). I always become completely immersed in the character’s minds and am able to feel what they’re feeling. Sawyer (the main character), is clearly an unreliable narrator, a trope that I usually dislike, however, Jones pulled it off brilliantly. The character is well-rounded and complex and, even though the novella is written in the first person, we get to know Sawyer slowly, as we would an actual person.
Night of the Mannequins is a character-focused story, all of the tension and atmosphere are created by Sawyer’s internal monologues. The novella’s written as if the main character were narrating (verbally) the events to us, the readers after all the events took place. Sawyer’s narration is annoying at times, he often gets carried away and is a bit too “philosophical” for my taste. I am aware that it was an intentional trait used by Jones to give his main character more depth, however, for me, it disrupted the flow and took me out of the story. The novella is not only narrated by Sawyer but also revolves around him, which results in the other characters feeling like cardboard cut-outs instead of real people.
Although the plot takes a backseat in this work, it was still incredibly executed and paced to perfection. The only exception was an unnecessary “twist” at the end, I won’t elaborate much on it for the sake of avoiding spoilers, but suffice to say that it felt more unrealistic than a mannequin coming to life. Speaking of mannequins, don’t expect this novella to have many of them, in fact, there is only one and his role in the story is definitely not what you’d expect. I went into this expecting a zombie apocalypse type of situation (but with mannequins) and let me tell you, it was nothing like that.
I recommend this novella to anyone that enjoys horror but do not go into this expecting a lot of supernatural action, think more psychological slasher instead. Night of the Mannequins made me fall even more in love with Stephen Graham Jones's writing and I intend to read all of his books until the end of 2022 (will I succeed? Who knows) and you should join me in this mission.
