Make a Home of Me by Vanessa Santos

Make a Home of Me is Vanessa Santos’ debut short story collection, published by Dead Ink Books. This haunting collection of tales was longlisted for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, so let’s take a closer look.

 

Make a Home of Me by Vanessa Santos summary

Make a Home of Me is made up of eight short stories, all focused on how the safety of our homes can be shattered in different ways.

Table Scraps

Table Scraps features the friends and family of a young man, brought together for a dinner following his death. As each of the attendees attempts to come to terms with their loss, they also force themselves to carry out his last wish. But when his last wish is to be eaten, some find the meal harder to face than others.

Emily

Written from the first-person perspective of an unnamed female character, Emily is the story of forced parenthood. Only when she agrees to move in with her partner, Ryan, does he tell her he’s a father. The young girl is a ghost in their home, barely speaking, demanding absolutely nothing of her. She finds it unsettling, but Ryan insists that’s just her way. But when Ryan is forced to travel for work, and she’s left alone with Emily for the first time, she can’t ignore her feelings any longer.

You can read an extract of Emily on the London Review Bookshop website.

Mouthful

Mouthful is made up of brief diary entries from a missing artist. Living alone in the woods, she records a giant monster closing in on her house. She goes from terrified to intrigued and soon hunts the monster down to a cave when she sees it in full for the very first time.

Changes

Changes is a very short story of a woman following her partner into a bar during their holiday. As she struggles with feelings of dissociation and unease, he seems more at home than ever. As she feels the strangers turn on her, she feels him disappear into the faces she doesn’t recognise.

Make a Home of Me

The Fink family is disturbed to start finding little notes throughout their home. At first, the parents think it’s their teenage daughter pulling a prank. But the notes keep coming, even when she goes on holiday with a friend. They call the police, but don’t get any help. Soon, the notes start to feel more personal, with details only someone inside the house could know. Are they being watched, or is the house talking to them?

As Above, So Below

As Above, So Below follows a young family as reports of unidentified crafts hit the news headlines. Before they know it, the internet is down and the military patrols their street, forcing them to stay in their homes. As their unease grows, their disconnection from the world forces them to live a smaller, quieter life.

Riverquick, Saltfresh

When a young girl sees her sister pulled beneath the water of a river near her home, she pretends not to have seen. Haunted by grief, she waits for her sister’s body to be washed out to sea.

The Wall

Anne-Marie and Lar’s quiet life is decimated by the horrific cries of their neighbour’s baby. Sleep-deprived and pushed to the edge, they think the worst of the new mother, sharing their darkest judgments of her. When they can’t take it any more, they burst into her home and change all their lives forever.

 

Make a Home of Me quotes

“… nothing is scarier than the thing whose shape you can’t see, forming and reforming itself in your imagination.” – Mouthful

“It’s amazing how many humans think they’ll be the exception.” – As Above, So Below

“I’d say a fair amount of them knew they wouldn’t come back from whatever was out there, they just couldn’t not know, the curiosity was eating at them, a parasite stealing all their energy.”- As Above, So Below

“You couldn’t get any closer than this, than consuming them, tasting them, having them inside you.” – Mouthful

 

Make a Home of Me by Vanessa Santos review

Make a Home of Me is a brilliant and fascinating collection of stories that fill you with unease. While some of the stories have more sensational plots than others, their approach is tender and human-focused rather than shock-driven. These stories won’t make you cringe, or gross you out like some horror stories. Instead, this collection gets under your skin and leaves you wondering how you’d react in the same situation. Most of us are lucky to have a home where we feel settled and safe, but how would we react if it turned into something different?

My favourite stories were Emily and Mouthful, but I found them all hugely enjoyable. Vanessa Santos’ writing is a creepy joy and this collection has left me very excited for her debut novel, In Your Heart a Devil, which is out in October.

Short stories often struggle to grab me, but Santos’ work

 

Is Make a Home of Me by Vanessa Santos worth reading?

Absolutely. Make a Home of Me is an unforgettable set of stories that will stay with me for a very long time. Vanessa Santos has a truly unique, unsettling writing style that I can’t wait to read more of. I can honestly say that this is the best debut short story collection I’ve ever read. My only complaint? I just wish there was more of it.

Buy your copy of Make a Home of Me by Vanessa Santos.

Thank you to Dead Ink Books and the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize for supplying me with a review copy.