"shriek: an afterword" deals principally with two eponymous siblings, janice and duncan shriek. janice, an ex-society figure and art critic, narrates with great and sometimes dark flamboyance. duncan, a historian of note, entertains twin obsessions: rival historian mary sabon and the mysterious graycaps. the shrieks figure rather prominently in vandermeer's collection of ambergris novellas and short stories "city of saints and madmen": duncan narrates the novella "the early history of ambergris", while janice's art criticism figures into the world fantasy award-winning novella "the transformation of martin lake".