At a glance, both The Remaking and Whisper Down the Lane are typically plotted horror stories. Clay McLeod Chapman defies generic expectations with these novels. His latest, Ghost Eaters, defies all expectations.
Ghost Eaters is a beguiling novel about a group of postmodern young people in Richmond, Virginia. Post-grad, pre-career, they are adrift in a limbo between the urge to resist conformity. and the need to grow up. Silas is their leader, a bohemian who preaches transgression from societal norms. Drug experimentation has turned to addiction for Silas, and the others are exhausted with the burden of being his friend. Especially his pseudo girlfriend Erin. Silas overdoses and dies, but leaves behind a morbid legacy.
Tobias, who lived in the shadow of Silas, has a supply of drugs he calls Ghost. Ghost, a form of mushroom, was discovered by Silas and it supposedly allows users to see and communicate with the dead. Plagued with remorse for over her final confrontation with Silas and residual feelings of love, Erin begins taking the drug. Squatting in a partially built house in an abandoned development, she sees not only Silas, but revenants from Richmond's colorful history.
Erin and other recruits continue to ingest Ghost as their lives degenerate into an hallucinatory hell. The question is whether Ghost does what it is purported to do, or are the visions merely drug-induced delirium.
Promotional materials compare Ghost Eaters to Paddy Chayefsky and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, but the novel brought Harlan Ellison's "Shattered Like a Glass Goblin" to my mind. It's like something an east coast Richard Christian Matheson might have written had he continued to do novels. William Burroughs is an obvious inspiration.
Clay McLeod Chapman is one of the most interesting and challenging writers to emerge in the horror scene in recent memory. He doesn't always play by the rules, and he blindsides me with each book I read. I'm excited to see where he takes us next.
Written by Mark Sieber
Ghost Eaters is a beguiling novel about a group of postmodern young people in Richmond, Virginia. Post-grad, pre-career, they are adrift in a limbo between the urge to resist conformity. and the need to grow up. Silas is their leader, a bohemian who preaches transgression from societal norms. Drug experimentation has turned to addiction for Silas, and the others are exhausted with the burden of being his friend. Especially his pseudo girlfriend Erin. Silas overdoses and dies, but leaves behind a morbid legacy.
Tobias, who lived in the shadow of Silas, has a supply of drugs he calls Ghost. Ghost, a form of mushroom, was discovered by Silas and it supposedly allows users to see and communicate with the dead. Plagued with remorse for over her final confrontation with Silas and residual feelings of love, Erin begins taking the drug. Squatting in a partially built house in an abandoned development, she sees not only Silas, but revenants from Richmond's colorful history.
Erin and other recruits continue to ingest Ghost as their lives degenerate into an hallucinatory hell. The question is whether Ghost does what it is purported to do, or are the visions merely drug-induced delirium.
Promotional materials compare Ghost Eaters to Paddy Chayefsky and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, but the novel brought Harlan Ellison's "Shattered Like a Glass Goblin" to my mind. It's like something an east coast Richard Christian Matheson might have written had he continued to do novels. William Burroughs is an obvious inspiration.
Clay McLeod Chapman is one of the most interesting and challenging writers to emerge in the horror scene in recent memory. He doesn't always play by the rules, and he blindsides me with each book I read. I'm excited to see where he takes us next.
Written by Mark Sieber
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