The #antiwrimo Experiment: Those Who Scream: A Novel by 30 Authors
The idea behind Those Who Scream was fairly simple; turning the idea of National Novel Writing Month, or Nanowrimo, on its head by having multiple authors all at once put together a completed novel within a month. Each author would write chapter, and it ultimately ended up having thirty authors. Some of the authors include Glen Binger, Zac Smith, Alice Kaltman, and Shannon Frost-Greenstein.
The result of this experiment resulted in a book with a rather simple set up. A woman named Molly Hammersmith moves from Kentucky to Georgia to take a job as a cemetery groundskeeper. When she gets there, however, the caretaker Mr. Nash is dead. Molly finds herself sucked into the mysteries of how Mr. Nash died and the secrets of the Scarlet Maple Cemetery.
The concept behind the novel led me to believe it would be a sort of parody in the vein of Atlanta Nights, wherein a group of science fiction and fantasy authors put together an incoherent book and submitted it to PublishAmerica to prove it was vanity press. It was intentionally full of nonsense grammar, no real story, and even had one chapter written by an AI.
Those Who Scream, however, is a real novel and not a meta parody. In fact, its vision manages to remain pretty coherent, despite the number of hands that put it together. There are times where the story seems to go off the rails, especially towards the end, but it reads as being intentional rather than a result of poor collaboration.
The term “Lynchian” gets thrown around a lot. At times, I've seen it applied to things that have little to do with David Lynch besides being weird or surreal. Here. however, Lynch is the most obvious comparison I can think of. The story is a mystery with a set-up that wouldn't be unusual in a mainstream thriller. However, it quickly takes a turn for the weird with ghosts (maybe), characters with incomprehensible motivations, and abrupt changes in time and place.
The novel is much closer to a moody head trip than it is to a straightforward mystery, which may disappoint some who find themselves drawn into the initial set up. Others may also find it frustrating that it will do things like suddenly switch perspectives to another character who barely shows up again, or a chapter that consists of a journal from the mid-1800's that discusses the strange fate of one of Molly's ancestors. None of it, however, is completely unrelated to the plot or the themes.
Molly's story, while slippery and not completely resolved, is ultimately about her learning her family's connection to the Scarlet Maple Cemetery. Several of her family members show up, though it's questionable which of them are alive or dead. Likewise, the last few chapters contradict themselves in parts and leave it up in the air what Molly's final fate will be. Despite all these intentionally alienating elements, I found myself hooked and ended up reading the entire novel over the course of a couple hours.
Those Who Scream is an interesting experiment in collaborative writing that I personally think is a success. It's a surreal noir mystery that goes in odd and unexpected directions while remaining an engaging read. It also introduced me to several authors who I'm now interested in reading more of. I would certainly recommend it.