Not A Speck of Light (2024) by Laird Barron

The black kaleidoscope

Readers who are unfamiliar with Not A Speck of Light may wish read my note below after reading the collection.

The black kaleidoscope

N. B. If you're a recovering drinker, don't buy this book. It's radioactive if you're due for a slip. And if someone gifts it to you, they are not your friend. They are your nemesis. Call your sponsor. -- Jay

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1. Blood Red Samaritans as a section title for a short story collection suggests there is mortal danger in helping others in peril.

"In a Cavern, in a Canyon" flashes back and back and then forth as the grandma narrator revisits the night in 1977 when her dad vanished as they hunted their runaway dog in the Alaskan bush. They hear a voice in the night.

Halfway back to the car, I glimpsed a patch of white to my left amidst the heavy brush. I took it for a birch stump with holes rotted into the heartwood. No, it was a man lying on his side, matted black hair framing his pale face. By pale, I mean bone-white and bloodless. The face you see on the corpse of an outlaw i…