Book Review: The Hatch; Joe Fletcher.

This book wasn't on my original list at all, but I've been really intrigued by this dark collection of poetry and it felt like a good ending to October, the month of spooks and scares!

SOURCE: Netgalley
TYPE: E-Read

TITLE: The Hatch
AUTHOR: Joe Fletcher
SERIES: --
PUBLISHER: Brooklyn Arts Press
PAGES: 122
GENRE: Poetry, Prose, Horror

RATING: 2.5/5 Stars

Blurb:
“I will do such things,” King Lear shouts before the storm, “What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be / The terrors of the earth.”

Drawing upon Edmund Burke’s definition of the sublime—the odd beauty associated with fear and self-preservation; our astonished delight in what destroys, what overpowers and compels us toward darkness—these strange poems mine the sinister fault lines between weird fiction, expressionism, gothic horror, and notions of the absurd, cracking the mundane shell of our given metaphysical order. 

In the traditions of Nerval, Trakl, Schulz, Tadić, Poe, and contemporaries Aase Berg and Jeff Vandermeer, the wonderful disassociation brought to bear on the reader lies in the conjuring of unprecedented worlds, their myths and logics, their visions and transformations—worlds that resist interpretation almost successfully, and reveal to us the uncanny and nightmarish.

What I Liked:

• This is certainly as dark as I expected. There is plenty of grotesque imagery, bizarre visuals and apocalyptic atmosphere to capture the imagination and I expected it to be weird. I also appreciated the occasional dashes of black humour! Everything was very vivid and that was to it's strength.

What I Disliked:

• I just didn't feel anything while reading this. It's probably just because it isn't my cup of tea, but I was expecting to be creeped out or horrified. Or even, inspired. I wasn't. I made my way through this collection with a vague disinterest and nothing captured my attention in the way I wanted.

Overall Conclusion:

Hmm. This will probably really capture some people as it does contain very vivid imagery and a certain dark atmosphere in abundance. I just don't think any of it was particularly memorable for me. There was an air of disconnect between everything written here that made me feel even less of an emotional attachment to what is being written.