Dagon by Fred Chappell

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

This is a strange little novel which uses motifs from the Cthulhu mythos to add new dimensions to a tale of human degradation and misery. It's not your standard Lovecraft pastiche, and people looking for the sort of tentacled tale Derleth used to offer by way of Lovecraftiana would not be best served by this odd tale of brutality shot through with a hint of the numinous.

If you're also a Ligotti fan, though, I'd definitely suggest this one.

 

[j d worthington]

Glad to see someone mentioning this one. Also glad to see it has been reprinted more than once now, as when I first began looking for it over twenty years ago, I had the very devil of a time finding a copy until it was included in The Fred Chappell Reader...

And, in looking that up on Amazon (just to see what it is going for these days), I found the following review:

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: The Fred Chappell Reader

 

[GOLLUM]

I have next to nothing by Chappell, so this interests me greatly.

I think I'll track down a copy of the Fred Chappell reader. It sounds very worthwhile, especially if he's being compared to Ligotti by my learned friend.

Nice to see you on the boards again Knivesout...

 

[j d worthington]

The Fred Chappell Reader has a variety of different types of writing from the man; only Dagon is in the Lovecraftian vein. But he is, quite simply, a darned fine writer, well worth looking into in or out of this particular field....

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Yes, Chappell has had quite a varied career, including a stint as Poet Laureate of North Carolina. Most recently, he has been working on a form he calls embedded poetry - a second voice that can be found within a poem's primary voice. There's a sample here: My Laureate's Lasso: SHADOW BOX: Fred Chappell

Dagon is available on its own in trade paperback from Boson Press (with a rather ugly cover, but what can you do).