Disability, Grief, and Haunted Indigenous Folklore in “The Whistler” https://ift.tt/gkuNd4f
Nick Medina’s latest novel, The Whistler, is the perfect way to ring in spooky season. Its alternating narratives trace two timelines in the main character’s life and build intertwined mysteries that kept me turning pages. The Whistler is a horror novel, and while there are some instances of graphic violence and gore, the psychological aspects seem most likely to linger.
Medina, a member of the Tunica-Biloxi tribe of Louisiana, is a rising star in the Indigenous horror genre. This most recent publication draws on themes already evident in his earlier work, and Native folklore, specifically, is a driving force in the novel. The Whistler is a perfect pick for fans of Stephen Graham Jones or readers of Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, for which Medina was a contributor.
Though this story stands alone, it also allows readers to spend more time with characters they may recognize from Medina’s previous novel, Indian Burial Ground (2024). Henry, Jade, and Toad take center stage in The Whistler, Roddy’s death is explained, and Mac and Miss Tilly reappear as well. This novel isn’t a sequel, though, and it doesn’t require knowledge of the earlier book. New readers of Medina won’t feel like they’re missing anything if they start here.
The chapters alternate between two related timelines, both following the same focal character: Henry Hotard. In most even chapters, 23-year-old Henry is enjoying recognition for ghost hunting videos he’s been making with his girlfriend Jade and his best friend Toad. When Roddy Bishop features Henry on the local news, views increase, feeding Henry’s desire for attention. The videos and, more importantly, the audience response appeal to Henry in part because he previously enjoyed playing guitar for crowds at his grandparent’s restaurant and bar, the Blue Gator Grill. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted his music career. While he does seem to have a genuine interest in the supernatural, he is mostly motivated by the idea of cultivating an audience and being known.
In odd chapters, Henry’s reality is wholly transformed as he struggles to adapt to his new life with quadriplegia after a traumatic spine injury. He lives with his grandparents, Mac and Tilly, but longs for his former life. Although everyone around him wants to help and be supportive, they are sometimes ableist and fail to understand Henry’s grief and fear. On more than one occasion, other characters move Henry’s wheelchair without asking or take him for a ride in the car without disclosing their destination. What is more, Henry becomes suspicious of Toad, who has suddenly taken an interest in fitness and health, as well as Jade, who suggests that Toad move into the apartment she used to share with Henry to help with the cost. In the able-bodied chapters, Henry and Jade’s relationship is sometimes hypersexual, and the emphasis on their physicality can seem a bit excessive at times, but it serves to contrast the loss of touch present in the quadriplegia chapters, highlighting Henry’s insecurity in their relationship.
The horror that accompanies loss of autonomy, physical injury, and pain is paired with paranormal horrors throughout the novel as well. Medina brings together specific Takoda tribal two-face stories alongside the more widespread superstition about whistling at night. The novel opens with a prologue based on the true crime story of the Phantom Whistler of Louisiana. The real life Jacqueline Cadow wasn’t harmed, but Medina’s fictionalized version is not so lucky. After whistling at night and hiding her engagement from her parents, Jackie is killed. Fifty years later, Henry, Jade, and Toad visit her deserted home for a ghost hunting video, and to shock his friends, Henry whistles. At night. Right outside of the Cadow home.
In addition to the Cadow prologue, the novel is punctuated with fragments of “The Boy with Two Faces,” which the book says is “Recorded by Miss Shelby Mire in Traditional Tales of the Takoda Tribe, circa 1986.” Miss Shelby is also a minor character in Indian Burial Ground. This folkloric addition serves as foreshadowing and carries immense explanatory power. At the end of the novel, I felt compelled to flip back through, piecing these fragments together to more clearly see the parallels Medina has so carefully crafted.
The whistle serves as a turning point in Henry’s life, though it is not the direct cause of his spinal injury. Medina does a beautiful job of balancing the two storylines, with the able-bodied chapters escalating toward a reveal of the injury that readers know must be coming, and the paraplegia chapters propelling us into Henry’s uncertain future. Cliffhanger moments punctuate the novel as alternating chapters interrupt one another, but the occasional frustration of wanting to flip ahead pays off. The tension carries the narrative forward, and in both timelines, the resolution is surprising and satisfying.
FICTION The Whistler
Nick Medina
Berkley
Published 16 September 2025
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