ABOUT
The thirteen stories in Rebecca Turkewitz’s debut collection, Here in the Night, are engrossing, strange, eerie, and emotionally nuanced. With psychological insight and finely crafted prose, Here in the Night investigates the joys and constraints of womanhood, of queerness, and of intimacy. Preoccupied with all manner of hauntings, these stories traverse a boarding school in the Vermont woods, the jagged coast of Maine, an attic in suburban Massachusetts, an elevator stuck between floors, and the side of an unlit highway in rural South Carolina.
At the center of almost every story is the landscape of night, with all its tantalizing and terrifying potential. After dark, the familiar becomes unfamiliar, boundaries loosen, expectations fall away, and even the greatest skeptics believe—at least fleetingly—that anything could happen.
These stories will stay with you.
Reviews, Press & Media
- Named one of Debutiful’s Best Debut Books of 2023
- Finalist for the Maine Literary Awards
- Starred Review in Publishers Weekly
- Starred Review in The Independent Book Review
- Review in The New York Times Book Review
- Review in The Portland Press Herald
- Review in Foreword Reviews
- Review in The Masters Review
- Review in Barrelhouse
- Review on the Library Ladies blog
- Review on the Read by Dusk blog
- Review in Atlantic Northeast Magazine
- Review in Calyx Magazine
- Spotlighted in The Boston Globe’s New England Literary News
- Interview with Michael Colbert in CrimeReads
- Interview with J.P. Der Boghossian on the podcast This Queer Book Saved my Life‘s “7 Minutes in Book Heaven” series
- Interview with Chris Holmes on the podcast Burned by Books
- Excerpt in Electric Literature with introduction by Wynter K Miller
- Excerpt on Debutiful’s website
- Excerpt in The Rejoinder
- Included in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s 40 New Summer Books to Make Vacations More Fun
- Included in Debutiful’s List of Most Anticipated Debuts of 2023 (Part 2)
- Included in Lambda Literary’s Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ July Books list
- Included in Tor.com’s list of Can’t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for July and August 2023
- On Read by Dusk’s list of 40 New Horror Books to Read for Summer 2023
- Included on The Kenyon Review’s 2023 Summer Reading Recommendations
- Playlist for Here in the Night on Largehearted Boy
- Interview with Swetha Amit in The Atticus Review
- Research Notes for Here in the Night in Necessary Fiction
- “You Just Have to Read This…” Books by Wesleyan Alumni Authors
- Top 10: Covers with Spooky Houses and Eerily Lit Windows in Bookanista
- Fiction That Incorporates Local Legends: An Annotated Reading List, for The Rejoinder
- Included on Zoomer Magazine‘s list of 13 Books for Spooky Season
- Included on The Chicago Review of Books’ list of 13 Terrifying Horror Books You Should Read this Halloween
- Interview with Tobias Carroll in Vol. 1 Brooklyn
- From Maine Horror Writers, 7 Volumes that Put the BOO in Book, The Portland Press Herald
PRAISE
Turkewitz’s nimble prose switches on a dime between soft and sharp, poignant and brutal, alien and achingly familiar. At the heart of each story, however, lies tenderness, magnified and made more precious by the dangers that surround it. This is a triumph.
-Starred Review in Publishers Weekly
On the simplest level, the collection reads as a stunning mix of creepy tales; on a deeper level, its hauntings double as metaphors for the dangers that girls, women, and those viewed as outsiders navigate on a regular basis. In subtle but striking prose, Here in the Night captures the psychological terrors laced throughout people’s everyday lives.
–Foreword Reviews
“These are, in other words, ghost stories about the power of ghost stories, the way they reflect and transmute shared fears.” —The New York Times Book Review
“The tales in Here in the Night are a sheer pleasure to read. These chills linger.” –The Portland Press Herald
Yes, disembodied voices howl. Floors creak. Hearts pound. But the real terror of Rebecca Turkewitz’s unforgettable stories only begins with the eerie manifestations. Here in the Night explores the terror of human relationships, of regret and betrayal, the incalculable risk of love. Filled with piercing wisdom and the ache of understanding, these stories explore the undead dreams that trail all of us, and illuminate the debts that bind us, like ghostly chains, to one another.
-Erin McGraw, author of The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard and Joy
What mystifies and delights me most about Here in the Night is that a story collection chock-full of hauntings and the haunted, ghost stories both (apparently) real and (probably) imagined, and harrowing deaths by drowning and other violences, should be so tender and generous and flat-out lovely a read. It’s a gorgeous book–wise and charming and moving and fun.
-Michelle Herman, author of Close-up and Dog
Rebecca Turkewitz’s Here in the Night is a treasure chest of psychological terror, and—as with the tales of Shirley Jackson, or Kelly Link, or Carmen Maria Machado—the terror is submerged, in the periphery of a character’s eyesight, lingering just off the page. Turkewitz is a master storyteller, and her debut collection is a triumph.
—Nick White, author of How to Survive a Summer and Sweet and Low
In Rebecca Turkewitz’s collection of short stories, even the most ordinary moments are suffused with magic and ghosts. Yet her characters feel as real as anyone you might meet, rendered with deep empathy and complexity. Here in the Night is a rich, vibrant and enthralling book.
—Dan Chaon, author of Stay Awake and Ill Will
“The influence of the past is the most prominent of many threads running through these stories, threads woven with such expertise that the smallest of details carry great reverberations.” -Starred Review in The Independent Book Review
“Turkewitz nails the atmosphere of every story and flexes her muscles with thoughtful characters you’ll want more pages of. This feels like an instant re-readable collection once the sky turns gray and leaves start falling.” —Debutiful
Rebecca Turkewitz 