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 and Media
- Starred Review in Publishers Weekly
- Excerpt in Electric Literature
- The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s 40 New Summer Books to Make Vacations More Fun
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
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
Rebecca Turkewitz 