By Christine de Kock
WEST Footscray author Clinton Green will launch his horror novel at the Dancing Dog Café this month at an event billed as The HORROR that came to FootSCARY.
Mr Green will be among three authors who will read from their latest publications on 13 April at the café.
Anna Dusk, who did the artwork for Mr Green’s book, is also a writer and will be among the readers.
Mr Green’s novel, The Percival Tyler Files, is set in the 19th century and deals with the suspicious disappearance of young man in the woods of an unnamed country town in the United States.
Percival Tyler belongs to the American Society for Reason and he investigates reports of the supernatural, showing them to be incidents that can be explained by reason.
His first case is undertaken with his father, a legend in the American Society for Reason. Together, they explore a series of ghoul-like raids on a graveyard in Boston.
The case sets the scene for Percival’s conflicted relationship with his father and his own beliefs about the supernatural.
It also sets the stage for a prophecy that is fulfilled at the end of the novel, in a scene reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project.
Mr Green said it was his first novel, although for the past 10 years he has been writing short stories which have been published in various magazines and anthologies.
“Probably half the stories have been in the horror genre,” Mr Green said.
“I have written in other sorts of genres, but I’ve found that I do horror the best.”
Mr Green said he used the term “horror” in a broader sense.
“It’s more broad than just a generic horror novel – it’s more psychological.”
Mr Green chose the genre due to his own interest in reading authors like Stephen King.
“I guess what I like about it – this is with the movies as well – they sort of go places where other genres don’t,” he said.
“I don’t think the horror genre is restrained, there is something quite primal about it that allows you to explore things in a symbolic sort of way.”
Having said that, he adds that he doesn’t like heavy symbolism in novels.
“It detracts from the story,” he said.
Mr Green said he hoped readers would enjoy the humour and development of the Percival character who starts off rather “stuffy”.
“I use the Victorian-era language to give that impression of the stuffiness of the character, but hopefully the reader can see that his view of the world isn’t exactly the way things are and there are more things happening underneath.”
Mr Green’s book, published in the UK by Rainfall Books, will be available at the launch and from the website http://ShameFileMusic.com/clinton.
The launch is on 13 April, 7.30pm at Dancing Dog Café, 42a Albert St, Footscray.
