Red Spikes - Margo Lanagan

Ten nasty, brutish, and confusing short stories.

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Book details

Author:Margo Lanagan
# of pages: 167
Publisher:Alfred A. Knopf
Original Publication Date: 10/01/2007
Genre: Fiction - Short Stories
Hardcover: $16.99
Publisher's Recommended Reading Level: 14
Read Aloud: 15
Read Alone: 15
Awards:Horn Book Fanfare

Parents need to know

Parents need to know that, amid several sexual references, there's a semi-graphic rape scene. Though it's between monkeys, they're portrayed with human thoughts and emotions. Also, an old woman is beaten unconscious and severely injured, and there is a death by knifing.

Families can talk about the unusual storytelling style the author uses. Do you understand what is going on? Do you feel like the author's trying to confuse you, and if so, why?

Message
Violence
Sex
Language

Message

Social Behavior:

Consumerism:

Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:

Needle-injected drugs, a fairy smokes a pipe.

Violence

Monkeys are raped semi-graphically; an old woman is severely beaten; a boy is kicked in the head; a man is knifed and killed; another is pitchforked.

Sex

A scene of childbirth, sexual references, a child tells another to grab a naked old man "by the nuts."

Language

Common Sense says

What's the story?

Reviewed by Matt Berman

Ten short stories, many involving the supernatural or other worlds. A sampling: A queen comes from another world to force a boy to aid her in childbirth. The leader of a monkey tribe dies, leaving the females to be raped. A girl is kidnapped by a monster. A man is led to Hell. An old woman, beaten nearly to death, unleashes a plague of mice.

Is it any good?

It may be a blessing that these nasty little stories are so confusingly told that the reader often has no idea what is going on; When you do get a glimmer of meaning, you'll often wish you hadn't. This is the kind of collection that makes you wonder about the author -- what kind of person has this kind of perversity floating around in her head?

No doubt this kind of storytelling appeals to some readers, especially older teens who have an appreciation for the dark and twisted themselves. But even they may be frustrated by the writing, which is often so deliberately opaque that the reader may wonder whether the author is hiding something -- or assume she has nothing much to say. Amidst all the run-on sentences and arcane language, it often seems as if Lanagan is trying so hard to sound clever and literary that she has completely lost her train of thought. Take a look at the excerpt below -- if it doesn't take your kids at least three readings to figure out what she's talking about, and if they have a taste for the macabre, by all means get this book.

Other choices

Other Books by Margo Lanagan:
Black Juice
White Time

Better Creepy Short Stories:
A Fit of Shivers by Joan Aiken
Truly Grim Tales by Priscilla Galloway
Great Writers & Kids Write Spooky Stories by Martin H. Greenburg, Jill M. Morgan, Robert Weinberg, eds
Nothing to Be Afraid Of by Jan Mark
Darkness Creeping II: More Tales to Trouble Your Sleep by Neal Shusterman
Mindquakes: Stories to Shatter Your Brain by Neal Shusterman
MindTwisters: Stories to Shred Your Head by Neal Shusterman
A Nightmare's Dozen: Stories from the Dark by Michael Stearns, ed.
Mindstorms: Stories to Blow Your Mind by Neal Shusterman
Seven Strange & Ghostly Tales by Brian Jacques
The Young Oxford Book of Nasty Endings by Dennis Pepper, ed.
Curses, Inc. and Other Stories by Vivian Vande Velde
Skin and Other Stories by Roald Dahl