In the wake of his infant daughter’s tragic death, Steve Brannigan is struggling to keep himself together. Estranged from his wife, who refuses to be inside the house where the unthinkable happened, and unable to work, he seeks solace in an endless parade of old sitcoms and a bottle of bourbon. Until one night he hears a sound from his daughter’s old room, a room now stripped bare of anything that identified it as hers…except for her security blanket, affectionately known as Blanky. Blanky, old, and frayed, with its antiquated patchwork of badly sewn rabbits with black button eyes, who appear to be staring at the viewer… Blanky, purchased from a strange old man at an antique stall selling “BABY CLOSE” at a discount. The presence of Blanky in his dead daughter’s room heralds nothing short of an unspeakable nightmare that threatens to take away what little light remains in Steve’s shattered world. Because his daughter loved Blanky so much, he buried her with it.
Horror Book Review Blog: Blanky
Topping out at eighty pages, Kealan Patrick Burke’s novella Blanky was a fantastic and mesmerizing read. Burke’s writing is top-notch and gripping which kept me engaged, feeling every emotion that Steve, our protagonist, felt.
Blanky is an emotional rollercoaster that held on to me with a firm grip that was difficult to let go of. Steve and his wife have just suffered the loss of their child (not a spoiler). The devastation has taken a toll on their marriage and Steve desperately yearns to win his wife back so that they can mourn and comfort one another. The world around them moves on, but Steve’s entire being is at a standstill as he tries to cope with the loss of his daughter. He is on the verge of giving up when he hears a noise coming from his deceased child’s nursery. There, he finds her favorite blanket or Blanky.
Again, Burke takes us on an emotional ride where we feel helpless, and sorrow, then a glimmer of hope followed by more dread and perplexity of what has happened and is happening. I wanted to take my time reading this one but found myself plowing through page after page. Don’t miss this one and be sure to give it a read.