Pam Kowalski Is A Monster by Sarah Langan
Is it possible to win three Stoker awards and still be underrated? Sarah Langan has been on a roll with socially important science fiction. Good Neighbors was a smart hybrid of cli-fi, The Burbs, and Twilight Zone’s The Monsters are Due on Maple Street. A Better World was a Phil Dickian sheltered reality in a dying Earth. Deep thinking books.
PKIAM is a short and fun little bizarro horror tale that can be read in a single sitting, although I did it in two, mostly sitting in the park. So it was a fun reading experience. I know I often complain about first-person narratives, but this was a perfect example of a good time for first-person. It is a bit of a spoiler, so you want a totally cold entry, know that I loved this novella, A very character-driven story of Janet Chow, who is drifting through life, suffering from a bunch of various setbacks. She is really bothered by the success of a high school classmate who has become a TV psychic. Janet believes she is unique position to out her former friend.
What makes this novella so entertaining… It starts with the tone.
“Some context: back at Sewanhaka Senior High, Pam was one of those agreeable girls everyone liked. She wore witchy black broom skirts and carried A tarot deck to fool people into thinking she was deep. Her crew was an assortment of mid-level popular, moderately but not especially athletic norm-cores. in other words, she was Wonder Bread. Tapioca. The extra rice you get at a Chinese restaurant that you don't want.”
Janet’s personality comes through each page that is supposed to happen in first person. One of the important things is that Janet is not exactly the best judge of what happened in the past, or in the story as it unfolds. Langan really does cool things with ooey-gooey ooey-gooey-ness of reality.
He chuckled. “Don't worry about it. It was a great story, though. You know when you've got a tiger by its tail. You can feel it. I had that. They come fewer and farther with age, but my Madam Pamela exposé had it all. I'll send it to you. You should use it. Just remember to credit me.”
“Absolutely,” I said.
Someone has to expose her, if it can't be me, I'd be happy for it to be you. So what are your questions?”
Outside, Dean was hacking up blood and possibly a literal lung. I was sitting on my small bed. Below, like dangerous lava, was the rotten carpet. I was aware that reality remained reality; it wasn't breaking or slipping into some new and horrific iteration simply because Pam Kolowski insisted it was.”
By the end, Pam and Janet are not who we think they are, a short book that touches on epic scope. It has a cool design, which didn’t prepare me for what was coming. That said, I trust Sarah Langan; this novella again proves she is worth following to any genre.
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