The Poorly Made and Other Things

There is something to be said for designing a creative sandpit, a place that you can return to and play within. Rather than writing new characters in a new place every book, you can return to the known. A shorthand exists. However, this is a double-edged sword, you can end up recreating the same stale book. Or you can create a set of short stories that surpasses the original. Welcome back to Sam Rebelein’s Edenville in The Poorly Made and Other Things. 

No matter how cheap the houses are in Edenville and the surrounding area, do not be tempted to buy a house there. You may be drawn to Upstate New York, historic buildings, and the quality College, but there is a dark underbelly to the locale and the locals. The town is infested with cursed wood that was stolen from a crime scene 100 years ago. The walls whisper, the woods cajole, and people go missing, a lot. 

Rebelein’s first outing was the unusual Edenville that was a slightly disjointed, but intriguing book. It was about a strange place in which academics are working together to gather all the cursed wood from an old crime scene to recreate the giant that was daubed in blood. Once recreated, the hope was to open the gateway to the realm beyond and witness for themselves what has been whispering madness into the residents. Poorly Made is a patchwork collection of short stories set around the same time and expands on some of the mysteries that make up Edenville. Like with any good patchwork, the whole forms into something even better. 

Poorly Made is a collection of dark and fascinating horror tales that I would have been happy to read as a normal short story collection but is goes beyond this. There is a meta-story that links the tales; The Stain is a reoccurring narrative that takes place between stories. It is a series of increasingly unhinged emails from a sister to her brother describing the history of Edenville and her recent investigations. 

Why is her brother not replying? You find out in one of the short stories. There are small teases throughout the tales that link characters, places and Edenville. It has a nonlinear style of world building that makes it feel like a horror version of Pulp Fiction. What you are reading may not have happened yet in another of the stories. 

Taken on their own, there are some wonderfully creepy stories. Proper horror outings, some body horror, and scares, but also that daunting feeling of dread that makes great horror. There are no second chances in these tales, guilty or innocent, your fate is sealed. This may be being dragged off by the creatures that live in the trees, or having your face and limbs exchanged with those of your classmates. The tales are delightfully unhinged, the right side of being sick and uncomfortable, while still being readable. 

I do not think I have read a more entertaining and impactful collection of horror short stories since 13 Tales of Horror from Point Horror three decades ago, a collection that began my love of horror. Rebelein has successfully combined Transgressive Fiction with Horror. The looser feeling of this collection of short stories manages to portray the location of Edenville better than the original novel. The madness makes more sense when you can witness from multiple viewpoints that Edenville is a place that is slowly drowning in evil.