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Post by dem on Jul 1, 2013 20:42:08 GMT
Jeremy Dyson - The Haunted Book (Canongate paperback, June 2013)  Cover design: Despotica Blurb: Read This If You Dare! Forget This If You Can!!!!
What unspeakable horror glimpsed in the basement of a private library in West Yorkshire drove a man to madness and an early grave?
What creature walks the endless sands of Lancashire's Fleetwood Bay, and what connects it to an unmanned craft washed ashore in Port Elizabeth, nearly six thousand miles away?
And could a book really be haunted by the ghost of another book?It's early days yet (am only up to P. 50) but this reads like the Amicus portmanteau technique applied to a Ghost Gazetteer - by a disciple of Robert Aickman. Mr. Dyson is contacted by journalist Aiden Fox to collaborate on a book built around his regular Stranger Than Fiction column for a local newspaper. Fox has compiled a dossier of reports, newspaper clippings and magazine articles pertaining to Britain's best haunted hotspots, and for the purposes of the book, requires Dyson to write them as fiction. Dyson's fascination with the supernatural began in infancy - he once dragged his parents and little sister to Whitby but couldn't find the museum said to exhibit a bona fide Hand of Glory - and Fox's project provides a perfect excuse for him to explore all those spooky places denied him in childhood. From Fox's files he selects only those cases that scared him, and sets off for the Midlands to investigate property #1, the old Neaton house. It's clear the excitement is already getting to him, as he can't shake the idea that there's a stowaway in the boot of his Peugeot. Kitson At Nealon: Greg Kitson, 41, accepts a senior marketing post with a Leicester-based company who produce free gifts for children's comics, ups sticks from Brighton to be near his place of work. Kitson is a womaniser, preferred targets, the lonely young foreign girls who haunt the bars of London's West End. A quick leg-over and he's off on his way before they realise he's given them a moody mobile number. Isaac Nealon, a reclusive autistic, has been taken into care. With his mother dead and estranged father long disappeared, the house in Hinkley is put on the market. Kitson snaps it up at a ridiculously low price, and has it blitz-cleaned and redecorated in readiness for his arrival. But the cleaners were less than diligent. Up in in the attic, he finds over 3,000 of Nealon's drawings, all of them studies of the back garden. Delightfully, there is also a bright red telephone of 'thirties vintage which he excitedly plugs into its original wall socket. He's not so enamored of it when, in the middle of the night, it wakes him. The desperate, rasping voice at the other end of the line directs him to the improbably tall, scruffy rockery in the back yard. Removing the top layer of stone reveals an Anderson shelter. He shines his pen torch through the barred window, and ..... If this sounds like your kind of thing, visit the Canongate Haunted Book page for some spooktacular freebies.
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Post by dem on Jul 2, 2013 10:47:07 GMT
There's plenty of great stuff out there, it's just a question of whether you're lucky enough to find it, and The Haunted Book is certainly doing it for me. The Diary Of Raymond Huld: Dyson drives North west to Fleetwood Bay - wondering the while why he's essentially writing Fox's book for him - to investigate alleged sightings of a would-be round the world yachtsman who disappeared, presumed drowned, off the South Africa coast in 2007. In recent years, three independent witnesses claim to have glimpsed a terrified Raymond Huld emerging from the waves escorted by .... something not human. Huld's craft, The Ashray, is named after a creature from Scottish folklore, "a being that is completely translucent and lives submerged beneath the waves. It is nocturnal and if captured and exposed to sunlight, it melts, leaving only a puddle of water." Aha, I think we all know what's going to happen to Mr. Huld! Except it doesn't. Ashrays are the least of his worries. It's the boobys and, especially, the song of the Dwendymar that do for his sanity. The song of the Dwendymar? Let's just say, you never want to listen to it .... If this all sounds vaguely Uncle Montague's Tales Of Terror for adults, you're not wrong, but The Haunted Book doesn't stay that way for long. Dyson now heads for Victoria Mills, Rochdale, for an encounter with the surviving members of 'eighties imaginary rock band, Zurau. He has the uneasy feeling something followed him from the bay - nonsense, of course. One really mustn't take this "supernatural" tommy-rot too seriously ... |
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jul 2, 2013 12:06:05 GMT
Sounds great. This one is on my shelf, awaiting reading.
For some reason it struck me when I bought it a few months ago that if anything should be read as a real book rather than as an ebook, this one is it.
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Post by pulphack on Jul 2, 2013 16:30:23 GMT
Couldn't agree more about that - some books just need to be physical objects; the work of Graham Rawle springs to mind. This sounds excellent and to look out for, but what Dem says raises a matter I've found germane of late. There IS a lot of good stuff out there, maybe more good new stuff than at any one time in publishing history (the same applies to music, too) as there is greater access to getting work out to a potential audience. The problem for that audience (ie me) is that there is SO much and SO many avenues that actually finding things are now harder in a different way to before. Too many avenues and not enough time. Which is maybe partly why I still read a lot of old stuff - the road map to find it is a bit easier to navigate. Worth a discussion?
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Post by dem on Jul 2, 2013 17:12:09 GMT
Sounds great. This one is on my shelf, awaiting reading. In that case, will try not to go too wild on the synopses , but it's advisable that you avoid this thread, until ... well. eternally really, but at least 'til you've read the book. A Wire with Gain: Twenty-one years after they split, the surviving members of Zurau - Richard Clip, Ray Kirk, Glenn Pressfield, and drummer 'Gyp' - return to Redbrick Studios, Victoria Mills where, in Spptember 1987, they recorded what was to be their last demo tape. Nobody has ever listened to the playback - little surprise, after what happened to Gabby - but, for the purpose of Ray's article - in the intervening decades, their keyboard wizard has carved out a career as a broadcaster. he's big in Canada - it's agreed they'll re-record the tracks over three days. The difficulty will be in recreating Gabby's ethereal backing vocal. To achieve the effect, their talented, self-loathing guitarist had been cajoled down into the cramped and freezing reverb chamber. Gabby had just pissed off Stouty, their engineer, and out of spite, he improvised a story of how, during it's original incarnation, the "Slubbing Room" was where recalcitrant child labourers were sent as punishment. The Mill's paedo contingent loved it as the machinery drowned out the screams of infants ... Gabby never did complete the vocal. On returning from the Slubbing room, she quit Zurau on the spot, accusing them of spiteful, laddish prank-playing. Which of the bastards had sneaked down and groped her in the dark? They now realise that the dead girl's unfinished contribution is the best thing about the song. Ray volunteers to try recreate it. * Pop culture references include Pink Floyd, Bauhaus, Hipgnosis album sleeves, X-The Unknown, and, indirectly, Robert Aickman (During their ill-starred 1987 session, Zurau recorded a new number, The House Of The Russians). |
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jul 2, 2013 18:46:26 GMT
Sounds great. This one is on my shelf, awaiting reading. In that case, will try not to go too wild on the synopses , but it's advisable that you avoid this thread, until ... well eternally really, but at least 'til you've read the book. No worries. The plan is to take it, along with several other real books (plus a few ebooks on the tablet), away on summer hols. Reading your synopses beforehand won't be a problem; several of your posts have encouraged me to read stuff rather than put me off. * Pop culture references include Pink Floyd, Bauhaus, Hipgnosis album sleeves, X-The Unknown, and, indirectly, Robert Aickman (During their ill-starred 1987 session, Zurau recorded a new number, The House Of The Russians). Dyson, like the others from The League of Gentlemen, has always acknowledged the influence of Robert Aickman, so I'd expect nothing less... |
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Post by dem on Jul 3, 2013 6:04:29 GMT
You are very kind, Mr. Proof. Actually, for once, I don't think the synopses are too spoilerish, because Dyson's fiction is all about what lies beneath that superficial surface level: fear, guilt (or absence of same), sexual nightmares of both the waking and sleeping variety - .posh stuff this posh stuff go it dem you will make the times literary supplement yet - the inner turmoil, etc. Your advice to friend zaraath on how best to appreciate A. N. L. Munby's The Alabaster Hand holds true for The Haunted Book. I hope you will let us know what you make of it. Enjoy your hols! There IS a lot of good stuff out there, maybe more good new stuff than at any one time in publishing history (the same applies to music, too) as there is greater access to getting work out to a potential audience. The problem for that audience (ie me) is that there is SO much and SO many avenues that actually finding things are now harder in a different way to before. Too many avenues and not enough time. So, so true. Of course, one man's "masterpiece!" is another man's "Jesus, what a pile of crap," but for me, we've been living through a horror golden age for five, six years now. Another great thing about The Haunted Book - I found it in the local library, likewise Chris Fowler's Hell Train, various Hammer Books titles, large print editions of Brian Ball's The Venomous Serpent and J. F. Straker's The Goat (admittedly, had to order the latter) - it's like they've finally twigged that there is more to a horror section than King, Koontz, the occasional Robinson 'Mammoth Book', and 500 unappealing "erotic" vampire titles. I've even seen a copy of Jonathan Oliver's super End Of The Line anthology on the shelves. And a recent Arthur Machen compilation. There's still a long way to go, but feels like a step in the right direction. Meanwhile, back with Mr. Dyson, we've just arrived outside the old Rauceby Hospital, Sleaford, because "Everybody likes a good Asylum story - at least they did when I was growing up." Welcome to .... |
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jul 3, 2013 8:55:03 GMT
Your advice to friend zaraath on how best to appreciate A. N. L. Munby's The Alabaster Hand holds true for The Haunted Book. I hope you will let us know what you make of it. Enjoy your hols! Well it'll be close to the advice I gave young Zaraath ("read it in Britain, in autumn, in threatening weather, as night sets in, alone...") but not quite. I won't be holidaying alone but late August in Shetland will probably tick all the other boxes... |
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Post by Dr Strange on Jul 3, 2013 10:17:16 GMT
I won't be holidaying alone but late August in Shetland will probably tick all the other boxes... Late August in Shetland means there won't be very much nightime at all to speak of. Maybe more chance of spotting the trowies though. Anyway, on the basis of this thread I've just ordered a copy of The Haunted Book. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 3, 2013 18:18:09 GMT
Pop culture references include Pink Floyd, Bauhaus, Hipgnosis album sleeves, X-The Unknown, and, indirectly, Robert Aickman (During their ill-starred 1987 session, Zurau recorded a new number, The House Of The Russians). Hmm, it's as though someone gave you the keys to my brain to get me to buy this book. I ordered it today. Dyson's fiction is all about what lies beneath that superficial surface level: fear, guilt (or absence of same), sexual nightmares of both the waking and sleeping variety - .posh stuff this posh stuff go it dem you will make the times literary supplement yet - the inner turmoil, etc. The inner literary critic surfaces!  |
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Post by dem on Jul 3, 2013 19:03:00 GMT
The inner literary critic surfaces! Relax, it was just a blip. my default setting is still moron. Ward Four Sixteen: Keen to impress Mara, his pal Ridwan's girlfriend of a year, Hal, 21, volunteers to accompany her on her first day as a volunteer at Rauceby Hospital. It's only when the genial Uncle Stuart introduces them to their charges - a minibus full of Down-syndrome children - that Hal realises the enormity of what he's foolishly let himself in for, but, much to his surprise, the day trip to Mablethorpe is actually very enjoyable, and the night even better, Mara sharing her single bed for a heavy petting session. The one minor disappointment, they oversleep and arrive at Rauceby twenty minutes late for duty. Uncle Stuart is not so genial this morning. Uncle Stuart, out of necessity, runs a tight ship, and, after yesterdays junket to the boating lake, today the tough stuff. Hal is sent along to the Special Care Ward. He doesn't like the sound of that, even less so, when, after traveling a succession of seeming endless corridors, a surly nurse unlocks the door to room 15. Within, a nursery and what he first takes to be a little mute girl of about five, but "In size she was a toddler. Her face was older." Something familiar about that face ... No, he's only thinking of Mara because his balls are still sore from the previous night's fun and games. The nurse leaves him to change infant-woman's nappy - somehow he accomplishes it - and then .... she locks him in with the occupant of Ward Four Sixteen. **** A 'phantom child', spotted in the grounds of the disused Mental Hospital, upsets Dyson more than he cares to admit. What began as a playful project has now taken on an aspect of dread, and he's glad that his next destination is way, way down South, the abandoned Riskiard & Looe Union Canal to be specific. But his sense of relief is short lived. The old Lock-keeper at Lamellion Mill Bridge acts like he's been expecting him. "This is about the book. The haunted book thing. Hang on." He returns from his cottage with a beat-up hardback. And that's when The Haunted Book gives way to a straight reprint of " H. Den Fawkes This Book Is Haunted (Hamlyn, London, 1978). What an amazing read! *Gabba Gabba Hey! Gabba Gabba Hey!" |
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Post by dem on Jul 4, 2013 12:44:50 GMT
This Book Is Haunted by H. Den Fawkes . Not the entire opus but chapters four (Water Ghosts), five (Mysterious Disappearances, Inexplicable Occurrences), and the very brief sixth, A Ghost Among The Bookshelf. How irksome for Mr. Dyson that the author should anticipate the exact format of his own Gazetteer by thirty-five years! And, to rub salt in the wound, it seems that, while researching the volume, Mr. Fawkes believed himself pursued from location to location by a spectral child. An Encounter By Water is a first-person account of a holidaying brain surgeon's peculiar adventure while walking the lonely towpath traversing the Riskiard & Looe Union Canal. Away from the Hospital, the surgeon is a man much given to solitude. At forty-two, he has determined that marriage - and, especially, children - are not for him. But then he meets a white-haired gent seeking the abandoned lock-keeper's cottage. It seems he lived there with his daughter and late wife. The surgeon volunteers to accompany him as the poor fool has hobbled several miles in the wrong direction. To break an uneasy silence, the old timer volunteers a few tantalising snippets. He, too, was a doctor. The cottage was bought him as a present from his devoted, and much loved wife, God rest her soul. "We could never decide if life is a happy sadness? Or a sad happiness ?" At one stage he drops to his knee and lets out a scream. The brain surgeon can't help but think he recognises him ...
Excuse me a minute, but there's some creepy kid glaring at me from outside on the balcony. Wonder how they managed it? Must have abseiled or someth ...
It's alright. Optical illusion. Where were we?
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jul 4, 2013 18:47:14 GMT
Excuse me a minute, but there's some creepy kid glaring at me from outside on the balcony. Wonder how they managed it? Must have abseiled or someth ... It's alright. Optical illusion. Where were we? Uh-oh... |
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Post by dem on Jul 5, 2013 20:28:51 GMT
"Fear's self-fulfilling. It brings about its own conclusion. That's the most frightening thing about it." I've never been a summer person and I guess yesterday's oppressive heat got on my nerves a little. Never mind, all icy calm again. It probably helps that Mr. H. Den Fawkes begins Chapter 5 at leisurely pace with an appreciation of Charles Fort/ clarification of the Phenomenalist viewpoint that might have come straight from the pages of The Unexplained magazine, but doesn't (unlike the earlier Dyson-Gatiss collaboration, The Essex Files: Basildon & Beyond [Fourth Estate, 1997], which lifts whole swathes of text and gives them a right royal doing over!). The Pleasure Park compiles two reports from the Bridgewater Times (June 1973, August 1975) relating the Swain family's obsession with a 'phantom fairground' in the New Forest. But then comes Tetherton Lock, as told by Norman Thomas, famous Radio City broadcaster and raconteur, concerning the experience of two Uni students who take summer jobs with the Manpower Services Committee and are allocated to a suspiciously hush-hush Government Storage Facility buried deep in the Pendle Hills. The work - testing junction boxes - is neither arduous nor especially dangerous, but "sergeant major" is insistent to the point of neurosis that they never stray from their designated corridor. They take to visiting local pub, "The Lass O' Gowrie." A chance meeting with a navvy who helped build the complex is hardly reassuring. He advises them to seek alternative employment: during the witch persecution, the caverns were a refuge of black sorcery baddoes and the air down there is tainted. The following day they discover the subterranean chapel, and - We never learn what happened to Ardel to account for his permanently shell-shocked expression, but we suspect his experience mirrored that of Hal at the Mental Hospital. Chapter 6: A Ghost Among The Bookshelves. Oh dear! Mr. Den Fawkes has just discovered an earlier non-fiction work, strikingly similar in content to his own! Am not sure how far to proceed with this 'review'/ synopsis/ mass spoiler/ whatever, as have no wish to ruin it for those yet to .... yet to ..... |
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Post by dem on Jul 7, 2013 13:57:11 GMT
Spoiler warning: We are now on the home straight and, while I've no intention of revealing the final result, those planning to investigate The Haunted Book - and, I fear, my very soul may depend on your doing so - are strongly advised to avoid reading beyond this point. Among the documents handed Dyson by the rather disquieting old timer at the lock-keeper's cottage, a reproduction of the entire first chapter of Sir Eden Vachs' A Book Of Hauntings: A Survey of Evidence (Faber & Faber, 1938), a work which spookily anticipates Sir Ernest Bennett's Apparitions And Haunted Houses by a year. In fact, Sir Ernest clearly adapted A Book of Haunting's preface to lend authority to his own, far inferior study! Apparitions Of Darkness. Case One: As related by a gentleman to U Reeder (deceased. A Book Of Haunting is dedicated to his memory). "The one you have found seeks enfleshment, possession. He does not know what he is or quite where he is. He is only hunger."1911, somewhere in the North of England. Our narrator, the newly appointed head librarian at X----- in L ------, has taken it upon himself to index the vast collection of Oriental porno bequeathed X----- by randy Lord F ---- who had a connoisseur's eye for such salacious material. Our man derives more satisfaction from his occupation than he would care to admit, as did, he suspects, his immediate predecessor, Q. While investigating the treasures of the top shelf, he discovers a row of false spines arranged to conceal a primitive but serviceable CCTV set up: Q had embedded a set of field glasses in the wall to spy upon the occupants of the adjoining household! The narrator has an uneasy feeling that he, too, is being watched and turns to stare direct into the sunken eyes of a pallid, bloated specre! On confiding in his deputy, L, he is informed that phantom in residence is none other than the notorious Burness, executed in 1892 for the sadistic murders of several prostitutes and derelicts. Burness, who lived in one of the houses backing onto the Library, was on friendly terms with Q. Of course, it was his bedroom - scene of many a depraved and violent revel - our pervy curator kept under the keenest surveillance. By a stroke of good fortune, L is acquainted with a gifted medium who is quite happy to perform the rite of exorcism. I'm not telling you the rest! Will merely comment that Case One is my absolute favourite single episode in The Haunted Book to date. Seventy pages to go, and I so don't want it to finish ...
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