Dark Rides: A Novel in Stories

by Derek McCormack

A gay teenager named Derek McCormack describes life in a small town in 1952. Unable to voice his forbidden desires to himself or anyone else, Derek moves like an automaton through a world that notices him only when he self-destructs. He is an ephemeral being obsessed with ephemera - fireworks, midway rides, holiday ornaments, country music stars. Illustrated with period photographs of midways, Dark Rides is an unprecedented exploration of the production of identity and the machinery of desire.

99 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1996

Reviews

[Caleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Derek McCormack lives at the austere intersection of Denis Johnson and Flannery O'Connor. Uniquely dark and unforgettable short fiction.

[Liv Archer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to be a trapshooter but now I’m a pyrotechnician

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfectly captures the small town gay experience of yesteryear...a strong companion piece to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not uninteresting, but it's quite a stretch to call this a novel. Even if all of the stories are about the same character it's difficult to put together a coherent timeline that would have them all happening to the same person. And in any event there's no narrative or thematic throughline connecting the stories - no story leads to the next; there's no difference in the character or his situation at the end of the book from the front of the book. To me this really read as a collection of very brief and minimalist short stories and not as the coherent story of a single person.
I do find the project interesting - i.e., telling the story of a gay teenager in a rural 1950s environment and through a gothic and sometimes violent style - so I was predisposed to get something out of this. However, none of the individual stories landed with me. At least it's a quick read!

[Yureka Eric Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

so trauma

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is, like, 80 pages long or something, told in a dozen or so short stories, so I'm still trying to understand how the author can call it a novel. But I did enjoy McCormack's choppy, poetic writing style.