A visit to the october country — 2020

In years past…

In years past, he booked his ticket or rented a car or found some other way to travel out as the 30th drew to a close.

This year, something new happens.

This year, he wakes up there. He looks around in astonishment, having barely registered the date on the calendar in all the hubbub of moving and civil unrest and life… and he smiles. It’s a shame not to see the conductor, not to pass over the toll-bridge, not to feel that particular falling-away (or the particular putting-on, as a favorite sweater) — except for the fact that he lives here now.

The fact of it overwhelms him, as does the beauty of the orange leaves rustling against the window, as does the thin howl of the breeze answered the half-hearted howl of the hound downstairs. Out in the yard, he sees his wife wrestling up a scarecrow.

Faintly, in the distance, he hears the train — someone else coming to visit, he supposes. He should probably get ready. After all, he knows what it is like to’ve been a visitor to the October Country and hopes that he can make it as welcoming to others as it was made to him.

So he turns to his shelves and makes a start…

The 2020 October Country Reading List

  • Ghosts by César Aira, translated by Chris Andrews

  • Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses

  • The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman

  • Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

  • The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

  • Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

  • House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

  • The Boatman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson

  • At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated by Anna Moschovakis

  • Ghosts of the Missing by Kathleen Donohoe

  • Maxwell’s Demon by Steven Hall

  • The Return by Rachel Harrison

  • The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

  • Full Throttle: Stories by Joe Hill

  • Destroy All Monsters: The Last Rock Novel by Jeff Jackson

  • A Lush and Seething Hell: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror by John Hornor Jacobs

  • Sisters by Daisy Johnson

  • Cujo by Stephen King

  • The Perfectly Fine House by Stephen Kozeniewski and Wile E. Young

  • The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich

  • The Fisherman by John Langan

  • Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh

  • Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell

  • The Rim of Morning: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror by William Sloane

  • The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

  • Ghost Story by Peter Straub

  • Growing Things and Other Stories by Paul Tremblay