Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2024 October 11 • Friday

Anoka is a short story collection and the debut of Shane Hawk. With the exception of the first story, the territory is very clearly horror—and often very unsettling horror.

All the stories take place in Anoka, MI, although Hawk himself lives in San Diego, CA. The other connecting thread is indigenous life, as each story features indigenous characters and offers comments, observations and insights into both the history and present-day realities of indigenous people. Hawk himself is Cheyenne and Arapaho.

Some of the writing is quite gruesome and even when it's not so viscerally horrifying it's still very disturbing. This isn't a book for everyone but real horror freaks should like it.

The first line of the first story is "When we brought Roland into our home, he had a difficult time adjusting".