About Dark and Other Stories
Ghost stories are no fun if they’re entirely made up. The problem with real ghost stories is that we can’t explain what is supposed to be going on, even if we successfully remember it. Sometimes we can’t be sure anything happened. The most truthful ghost stories are likely to be told by those who struggle to believe their own experience.
The term “apparitions” is reserved for things that appear to be real but have some quality that tells us in retrospect that they are not real in some way. It’s a specter--a lovely word that includes within itself a reference to sight. We don’t really know what an apparition is or where it comes from. Nothing has changed since Shakespeare’s time, when practical and responsible persons might say, “It harrows me with fear and wonder.” It will be spoke to. “Thou art a scholar. Speak to it, Horatio.”
The term “apparitions” is reserved for things that appear to be real but have some quality that tells us in retrospect that they are not real in some way. It’s a specter--a lovely word that includes within itself a reference to sight. We don’t really know what an apparition is or where it comes from. Nothing has changed since Shakespeare’s time, when practical and responsible persons might say, “It harrows me with fear and wonder.” It will be spoke to. “Thou art a scholar. Speak to it, Horatio.”
Of the six pieces in Dark and Other Stories – “Dark”, “Hanging Valley Breakdown”, “Remote”, “Banjo”, “The Stony Point Poltergeist”, and “Off the Map” – the only fully nonfictional piece is “The Stony Point Poltergeist.” Only the names have been changed in that story. All these years later, I now live a mile from the abandoned Wight farm. I think about that sometimes at night.
The only entirely fictional piece is “Off the Map.” Long-haul hikers tell me it's the most realistic piece in the collection. I find that curious, because the central incident or climax is a Lovecraft homage. West Virginia is rich in spectral terrains and the setting of this story is the upper valley of the Cheat, particularly John’s Camp Shelter and Wildell.
The only entirely fictional piece is “Off the Map.” Long-haul hikers tell me it's the most realistic piece in the collection. I find that curious, because the central incident or climax is a Lovecraft homage. West Virginia is rich in spectral terrains and the setting of this story is the upper valley of the Cheat, particularly John’s Camp Shelter and Wildell.
“Hanging Valley Breakdown” is spiced up around the edges and seemed quite daring and esoteric back in the Carter Administration. It is fictionalistic in the way some other telling might have been realistic.
“Remote” need not ask to be believed. There is no Blackwater College deep in the haunted hills of West Virginia. There will never be a working explanation for the way some people disappear. And we can never predict exactly what we’ll see on a mountain road at midnight.
“Remote” need not ask to be believed. There is no Blackwater College deep in the haunted hills of West Virginia. There will never be a working explanation for the way some people disappear. And we can never predict exactly what we’ll see on a mountain road at midnight.
“Banjo” was written when I was a graduate student as a magazine submission. I have a sort of tender feeling for this old story. I notice I invested the protagonist with some modest academic responsibilities. The story is a warning: don’t get too reckless about looking through cracks.
Finally, there is “Dark.” I was a projectionist and then an assistant theater manager in graduate school. “Dark” started forty years ago as an attempt to keep a diary of odd things that happened there. It has been through uncountable drafts since. It’s monstrously censored but I have never found a way to uncensor it. The best versions seemed merely insane. This version has to do.
Finally, there is “Dark.” I was a projectionist and then an assistant theater manager in graduate school. “Dark” started forty years ago as an attempt to keep a diary of odd things that happened there. It has been through uncountable drafts since. It’s monstrously censored but I have never found a way to uncensor it. The best versions seemed merely insane. This version has to do.
Here are a couple of pages of "Dark" in graphic novel form, done by my artist daughter Lara. An alternate way of telling this story:
Graphic novel extracts by Lara Mawyer.