Mapping The Interior by Stephen Graham Jones

Publisher – Tor.com

Published – Out Now

Price – £2.99 kindle eBook £7.99 paperback

Walking through his own house at night, a fifteen-year-old thinks he sees another person stepping through a doorway. Instead of the people who could be there, his mother or his brother, the figure reminds him of his long-gone father, who died mysteriously before his family left the reservation. When he follows it he discovers his house is bigger and deeper than he knew. The house is the kind of wrong place where you can lose yourself and find things you'd rather not have. Over the course of a few nights, chasing the ghost of his father and the promise of his Native American heritage, the boy tries to map out his house in an effort that puts his little brother in the worst danger, and puts him in the position to save his family...at terrible cost.

We are always haunted by our past. Those childhood memories that can shape us. They also haunt our future. Will history repeat itself? Who do we ultimately become? But in fiction our ghosts can be very real In Stephen Graham Jones’ disturbing yet powerful horror novella Mapping The Interior we see a family where the spirit of a dead father is creating severe danger for the children which will have a lasting impact.

Junior, his brother Dino and mother have moved away from the native american reservation they initially lived in after Junior’s father was found dead. Junior’s mother felt she needed to give her children a fresh start and their small one storey home held up on supports is their new family home. Junior at 15 now is often thinking about their father he apparently resembles and then one day believes he sees him in traditional dancing costume cross a room in the middle of the night. Junior gets obsessed with looking for further evidence of a haunting and notices his brother seems to be having increasing issues such as seizures, memory and learning difficulties. Junior starts to suspect the haunting is not as benevolent as he wished.

This is a dark and disturbing tale I loved. There is initially a lot of ambiguity as Junior tells us his story. Is this a young teenager just really hoping he’s not alone. Jones really though the narration puts us in this family’s day to day life. Dino is horrifically bullied by other children at school and on the bus. Their mother works hard, and money is scare. Just perhaps the ghost is more metaphor? Then Jones neatly starts to up the supernatural elements. Initially they come at a moment of great danger for Junior which makes us sigh relief. But this is not to last long. Jones though uses the quiet moments in the story to explore the tight bonds between the brothers and parent. Each cares and fears for the other and so we hope they can pull through this dangerous time. A description of them playing in the garden together is a much needed piece of light to make us care for their futures.

Junior reaction to the events escalates and in one terrifying sequence at night what we think may be simple teenage rebellion becomes something much darker and filled with violence. Junior realises not all spirits are kind. The finale if this childhood tale is a terrifying moment of father and son in an unusual final encounter filled with despair and a metaphor for future and past killing each other. That would have been pretty powerful itself but then we get a glimpse of Junior’s future and in a relatively passive yet startling set of revelations we see how these experiences then shaped the family. Initially melancholy but then we realise where the story is heading, and we realise the past can drag anyone down if the reasons are strong.

Mapping the Interior is a stone-cold dark tale that knows how to give us hope, snuff it out, make us care for characters in danger and hope that they can escape their pasts. It reminds us though that the past is always pretty strong. Very impressive and fans of this author’s work will not be surprised at the quality of the story. Highly recommended!