Critical Introduction

Edward D. Hoch (1930–2008) was a short story writer known more for his detective fiction than horror, and one can find some elements of his preferred genre in this selection from 1963. It is a story about a monster, certainly—but it is also a story of dealing with childhood trauma. The story seems to suggest that the protagonist's return and confrontation with the monster of his childhood has finally allowed him to move forward and develop some sort of relationship with the people around him: he is sure and no longer needs to doubt himself. However, the monster appears only to him; couple that with the town's apparent suspicion that he killed his sister, and there is reason to think that this monster is completely metaphorical. It may very well be a representation of the part of him that killed his sister. The story's ambiguity—at once frustrating and fascinating—gives the monster a depth that is surprising in such a brief tale.

Reading Questions

Think about identity in this story: the main character is called by a nickname (Buddy), but the reader never learns his given name, nor the names of his sister, the old woman, his wife, or the monster. What effect does this effacement have on your relationship to the characters?

Like a number of other monsters, the faceless thing exists outside normal geographical bounds and is only impressionistically described. Compare these elements with other monsters. Why do you think this is a common technique for writers as they create their monsters?

Further Reading

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),”in volume 1; originally published in Monster Theory: Reading Culture, edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, 3–25. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

Hoch, Edward D. The Future Is Ours: The Collected Science Fiction of Edward D. Hoch. Rockville, MD: Wildside Press, 2015.

Ness, Patrick, Siobhan Dowd, and Jim Kay. A Monster Calls. Somerville, MA: Candlewick, 2011.Sletvold, Jon. “Freud's Three Theories of Neurosis: Towards a Contemporary Theory of Trauma and Defense.” Psychoanalytic Dialogues 26 (2016): 460–75.