A Rapturous Melancholy
I’m really excited about getting to work with Darren Speegle on his collection, A Dirge for the Temporal. While reading the manuscript there were times when the haunting beauty of his imagery literally took my breath away. I can’t help but associate Speegle’s work with all things decadent. Like Baroque architecture, plush velvet furnishings or the richest chocolate truffle dessert, Speegle’s prose delights all the senses.
The recent trend in horror fiction has been toward extreme, gritty and graphic, violence. Speegle brings back the dark mystery of the supernatural, that giddy feeling of fear mixed with excitement, that only comes from partial revelations, things half-glimpsed and misty. Like H.P. Lovecraft or Edgar Allen Poe, Speegle’s stories belong to the twilight hour, just after the glorious reds and golds of sunset have slipped away giving warning that total darkness is quickly approaching.
Most of Speegle’s work is set in Europe where old world legend and gothic sensibilities lurk behind every corner. The only other work I have read that created an atmosphere so fraught with danger and possibilities is Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca. Although the two works are not related thematically they share the same atmosphere of aching beauty and impending doom. Speegle’s work is a rare treat to be savored.
[bctt tweet=”…fraught with danger and possibilities.” username=”RDSPress”]
current mood: enthralled
current music: Black Aria by Glenn Danzig
