I listened to the audiobook of this short story yesterday (as part of an Audible exclusive collection of short stories called Trespass: Take a Walk on the Wild Side), and I thought I would attempt to write a review. Not an easy task for me, since Stephen Graham Jones’ writing usually leaves me speechless. He just has that undefinable thing that turns ordinary words into transportation devices, and I walk away from his stories feeling like I’ve been caught up in a whirlwind and blissfully happy (and deliciously spooked) about it.

I read another of his short-ish, audio-only works last year, The Babysitter Lives, and it struck me while listening to this second one that his shortest works contain his biggest ideas. The gist of The Backbone of the World is that an Indigenous American woman finds prairie dogs are taking over her property and tries various means of getting rid of them, but she soon starts to wonder if these are ordinary prairie dogs after all. A simple yet intriguing concept for a horror story in a collection whose tagline is: “When nature gets up close and personal, it isn’t always pretty.” Also, very much an on-brand setup for a Stephen Graham Jones story, whose novel The Only Good Indians explores the idea of animals, or animal spirits, seeking vengeance for human-inflicted damages.

However, this story takes a wild turn that I never saw coming – also par for the course when it comes to this author – and toys with concepts that I wish he had explored in a 400-page novel rather than an 80-minute audiobook. Without giving too much of the plot away, this becomes a think-piece on not only the harm humans are inflicting upon the natural world but also on the nature of time and the importance of holding on to a people and place’s mythology. As with most of his works, he never gives a detailed explanation of what’s going on, leaving the reader with a lot of questions to ponder (chief among them being “What did I just read?” as a quick glance at the story’s Goodreads page will show), but one thing is abundantly clear – once you read this story, you’ll never look at prairie dogs the same again.