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The Satyr & Other Tales
In the final throes of the Blitz, Austin Osman Spare is the only salvation for Marlene, an artist escaping a traumatic past. Wandering Southwark’s ruins she encounters Paddy Hughes, a fugitive of another kind. Falling under Marlene’s spell Hughes agrees to seek out her lost mentor, the man she calls The Satyr.
Yet Marlene’s past will not rest as the mysterious Doctor Charnock pursues them, trying to capture the patient she’d once caged.
The Satyr is a tale inspired by the life and ethos of sorcerer and artist Austin Osman Spare.
Yet Marlene’s past will not rest as the mysterious Doctor Charnock pursues them, trying to capture the patient she’d once caged.
The Satyr is a tale inspired by the life and ethos of sorcerer and artist Austin Osman Spare.
230 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2015
1 person is currently reading
98 people want to read
About the author
Stephen J. Clark
15 books62 followersStephen J. Clark’s stories have appeared in numerous anthologies. Frequent collaborations with Tartarus Press have notably featured Clark’s cover illustrations for a complete series of Robert Aickman’s strange tales.
In Delirium’s Circle, Clark’s debut novel, was published by Egaeus Press in 2012. The Satyr and Other Tales, a collection of novellas was released by Swan River Press in 2015. His second novel The Feathered Bough was published by Zagava in 2018. A third illustrated novel, The Mirror Remembers (also from Zagava) was published in 2024.
A Mythology of Masks, a collection of short stories and novellas was published by Egaeus Press in 2025.
In Delirium’s Circle, Clark’s debut novel, was published by Egaeus Press in 2012. The Satyr and Other Tales, a collection of novellas was released by Swan River Press in 2015. His second novel The Feathered Bough was published by Zagava in 2018. A third illustrated novel, The Mirror Remembers (also from Zagava) was published in 2024.
A Mythology of Masks, a collection of short stories and novellas was published by Egaeus Press in 2025.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 30, 2025
Stephen J. Clark is a painter of dreams. these dreams are carefully even studiously depicted, never wispy nor ethereal. one can clearly see the specific parts of his paintings. a seance here, a satanic book there, an oddly configured house, a possession. but step back and attempt to view the whole picture, attempt to understand how those parts fit together and what it all means... such goals will be frustrated, I think. I was reminded of Robert Aickman (one of my favorite authors) and his refusal to provide clear answers; ambiguity is a given. but their interests are quite different. Aickman portrays the modern world, turning prosaic reality into something sinister and threatening. Clark lives only partly in his era of choice (the 20th century between and during the world wars); he also lives in the past, a place both menacing and comforting, one that slips in from time to time into later ages and, not liking what it sees, slips back out.
overall, despite a feeling that this collection is a somewhat minor effort, its stories did leave me intrigued. the evocative prose was impressive on a technical level and the narratives were gripping. I hope to read more by this talented author.
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"The Satyr" - a novella-length tale of a woman hunted and on the hunt, perhaps mad, perhaps a sorceress. 'Marlene Dietrich' is her adopted name; 'The Satyr' is her mentor and the object of her hunt. her huntress: the doctor who treated her in the institution where she was once confined. her companion: our narrator, a manipulative ex-convict who is slowly falling in love. this foreboding tale is set in WWII-era London and the bombed-out streets and buildings under attack made for a compelling setting and provided much absorbing imagery. the entire piece is very well-written, a deliberately ambiguous story with some compelling set pieces, particularly its seance, and with a narrative that is surprisingly driven. but where is it driving to, what is it trying to say? to its detriment, I'm not sure it is saying much... it ends with almost a shrug, as if everything that came before didn't matter all that much...
"The Horned Tongue" - an elderly widower investigates his late wife's secret life and finds himself a pawn in a game played by her coven and Satan himself. this is a nicely old-fashioned tale, written in the subtle, careful prose I've come to expect from the author. a surprising treat occurs on page 5: it turns out the tale is narrated by ! I loved the nonchalant and lightly sardonic way that he introduces himself to the reader. certainly an urbane and upbeat fellow.
"The Lost Reaches" - Eastern Europeans on the run from Soviet soldiers enter a mysterious house in the wilderness, one that appears to be channeling the past via a painter's visions. I think? the story was hard to parse; it was both rather obvious (the decadent past rendered as a series of lightly sadomasochistic tableau) and rather strenuously bizarre (the ending in particular was mystifying, as was the soldiers' transformations into giant scarab beetles shortly after entering the house). what I will take away the most from this odd offering was the opulent atmosphere and puzzle-box layout of the house itself.
"The Feast of the Sphinx" - in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, an inspector conducts a series of interviews with a painter who may be a madman or who may have actually had a series of encounters with a mysterious Countess who lives outside of space and time. to say a story within the weird fiction subgenre is "enigmatic" is like saying water is wet - and yet "enigmatic" is the exact word to describe this quietly unnerving tale. what is the connection between the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II and the Czech surrealist artist known as "Toyen" who lived several centuries later? perhaps only God and the author know. this story has much in common with the prior story in its theme of a bizarre, erotic past milieu supernaturally bleeding into a later era.
overall, despite a feeling that this collection is a somewhat minor effort, its stories did leave me intrigued. the evocative prose was impressive on a technical level and the narratives were gripping. I hope to read more by this talented author.
֍
"The Satyr" - a novella-length tale of a woman hunted and on the hunt, perhaps mad, perhaps a sorceress. 'Marlene Dietrich' is her adopted name; 'The Satyr' is her mentor and the object of her hunt. her huntress: the doctor who treated her in the institution where she was once confined. her companion: our narrator, a manipulative ex-convict who is slowly falling in love. this foreboding tale is set in WWII-era London and the bombed-out streets and buildings under attack made for a compelling setting and provided much absorbing imagery. the entire piece is very well-written, a deliberately ambiguous story with some compelling set pieces, particularly its seance, and with a narrative that is surprisingly driven. but where is it driving to, what is it trying to say? to its detriment, I'm not sure it is saying much... it ends with almost a shrug, as if everything that came before didn't matter all that much...
"The Horned Tongue" - an elderly widower investigates his late wife's secret life and finds himself a pawn in a game played by her coven and Satan himself. this is a nicely old-fashioned tale, written in the subtle, careful prose I've come to expect from the author. a surprising treat occurs on page 5: it turns out the tale is narrated by ! I loved the nonchalant and lightly sardonic way that he introduces himself to the reader. certainly an urbane and upbeat fellow.
"The Lost Reaches" - Eastern Europeans on the run from Soviet soldiers enter a mysterious house in the wilderness, one that appears to be channeling the past via a painter's visions. I think? the story was hard to parse; it was both rather obvious (the decadent past rendered as a series of lightly sadomasochistic tableau) and rather strenuously bizarre (the ending in particular was mystifying, as was the soldiers' transformations into giant scarab beetles shortly after entering the house). what I will take away the most from this odd offering was the opulent atmosphere and puzzle-box layout of the house itself.
"The Feast of the Sphinx" - in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, an inspector conducts a series of interviews with a painter who may be a madman or who may have actually had a series of encounters with a mysterious Countess who lives outside of space and time. to say a story within the weird fiction subgenre is "enigmatic" is like saying water is wet - and yet "enigmatic" is the exact word to describe this quietly unnerving tale. what is the connection between the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II and the Czech surrealist artist known as "Toyen" who lived several centuries later? perhaps only God and the author know. this story has much in common with the prior story in its theme of a bizarre, erotic past milieu supernaturally bleeding into a later era.
May 14, 2019
Try as I might, I have been unable to identify what it is about Stephen J. Clark’s syntax that I find so mesmerizing. It’s clear that there is a pattern - In Delirium's Circle has the same "fingerprint". But I can’t pinpoint, mechanically, where and how his syntax turns to create the great looping shape I feel as I read his writing. There is something of the labyrinth in all of this, and I am so fascinated being lost in it that I can’t focus on the gears that make this machine turn.
Take, for example, the main protagonist (or antagonist?) in the title story. I can't quite tell if Marlene is half-crazy, outright insane, or the wisest person on the crumbling streets of London. Is she really Marlene Dietrich? If not, does she actually think she is? Maybe she's bluffing. Maybe not. In any case, though, I find her fascinating.
The very setting of the story is, itself, a labyrinth – a bombed-out London during World War II. The city blocks are ruined crenellations along the castle of the underground. But by “setting,” I don’t just mean the physical setting, but also the sociological and even mystical setting. Clark has the ability (and a way) to infuse the knockabout underworld of London with a certain mysticism, even a shift from the banal mean streets to a series of transcendental portals. Grit and magic meld together in a way that seems not only natural, but logical.
Clark's ability to clearly describe "dream logic" is awe-inspiring. Such a difficult thing to describe, yet Clark does so in such a way that reading the words on the page invites one into the dream there portrayed. It is a spell, a summoning of the reader into Morpheus' realm.
“The Satyr” is a strange, esoteric thriller, as if David Lynch and Alfred Hitchcock had collaborated on a film script. Yes, it’s as good as you’re imagining it. In fact: it’s better.
Here is a sample of the beautiful, dark, opium-dream prose:
The Lanes I tried to follow pulsed with lightning. At each junction paths multiplied around me. As I staggered on through the furnace of that red-brick maze my fingers trailed cracked walls, unsettling a lacework of shadows in my wake., Alleys wheeled about me as I turned to take another direction, so I reached out from one wall to the next, feeling my way like a blind man, the furrows of the world deepening and multiplying as I went. Pausing to wait for an eternity the intoxication would not pass, yet to remain standing still only left me vulnerable to the widening fissures beneath my feet. If I hesitated the pavements and walls were sure to sprout coarse black hair. All were signs that suggested whoever t was that had hired Bloaters had now sent something far worse after me. So I pushed on even if it meant I had to crawl.
Casting my gaze upward provided no peace or hope of escape. A barrage balloon in the sky overhead throbbed in time with my heartbeat as distorted faces emerged from the enflamed clouds around it. As thunder filled the alleys naked strangers ran criss-crossing from one yard doorway to another. From broken windows ancient faces peered, their translucent skin lit by their bones within. All around me ack-ack fire erupted against the sounds of agonized cries and collapsing walls. And the flies again buzzing; everywhere buzzing.
Then the confines of the backstreets gave way to an overwhelming sweetness of sap, of burnt stripped bark as I found myself straying across an open green surrounded by blasted and still-burning trees. An unearthly silence fell within the square of lifeless facades surrounding me, every pathway a glittering mosaic of glass slivers, until another cataract of incendiaries enveloped the rooftops with streams of dancing blue-white flames. In the debris and embers, in the depths of the white-hot flames fluid forms, shapeless phantoms stirred and rose up, invoked in the fire. From the blackened rafters, from the spaces in between, wings unfurled and limbs were born, reaching out only to vanish again. And what did I hear crying as it was born that night? As all of my childhood haunts were devoured, the blaze of all those memories burned at once; it was the sound of one world dying as another emerged. Through the great veil of broken frames and shattered glass I glimpsed the world’s secret face.
As the dream-labyrinth that is “The Satyr” ends, the question remains: "Who is dreaming and who is the dreamed". Our view from the labyrinth (or from the wartime "trenches," psychogeographic trenches, really) it's never completely clear.
In addition to this most excellent novella, there are several shorter stories. In "The Horned Tongue," a young bookseller finds that his dead wife had had congress with the Devil. Clark does what he does best, weaving an intricate web of intrigue and betrayal, though one must not pity the young bookseller . . . Five luciferian stars for this beautiful weaving of deceipt and desire, with language itself as a supporting character (or is that "characters")?
To give a mental glimpse of the next story, “The Lost Reaches,” imagine Jan Svankmajer, Angela Carter, and David Lynch getting together to do a long story about prisoners fleeing soviet agents and finding themselves in The House of Leaves - but worse . . . on acid. This is a different tone for Clark, to be sure, but not bad-different, just different. A phantasmagoric cabinet of wonders.
“The Feast of the Sphinx” takes place in Nazi-occupied Prague. The dialogue between a prisoner and his possibly-altruistic interrogator, as well as the slippage from within the prisoner from starving artist to “the Countess” is what makes "The Feast of the Sphinx" really hum. A lot of people, a lot of readers, in fact, would say "no one really talks like that"!
You know what? You're right. No one really does talk like that . . .
AND THAT'S WHY I LIKE IT!!!
Banality is not automatically "artistic" or "daring" or "outre". Give me a pile of adjectives, strange syntax, beautiful metaphors. Shove me into that syntactical maze, never to escape. Give me the literary esoteric . . .
Give.
It.
To.
Me!
Take, for example, the main protagonist (or antagonist?) in the title story. I can't quite tell if Marlene is half-crazy, outright insane, or the wisest person on the crumbling streets of London. Is she really Marlene Dietrich? If not, does she actually think she is? Maybe she's bluffing. Maybe not. In any case, though, I find her fascinating.
The very setting of the story is, itself, a labyrinth – a bombed-out London during World War II. The city blocks are ruined crenellations along the castle of the underground. But by “setting,” I don’t just mean the physical setting, but also the sociological and even mystical setting. Clark has the ability (and a way) to infuse the knockabout underworld of London with a certain mysticism, even a shift from the banal mean streets to a series of transcendental portals. Grit and magic meld together in a way that seems not only natural, but logical.
Clark's ability to clearly describe "dream logic" is awe-inspiring. Such a difficult thing to describe, yet Clark does so in such a way that reading the words on the page invites one into the dream there portrayed. It is a spell, a summoning of the reader into Morpheus' realm.
“The Satyr” is a strange, esoteric thriller, as if David Lynch and Alfred Hitchcock had collaborated on a film script. Yes, it’s as good as you’re imagining it. In fact: it’s better.
Here is a sample of the beautiful, dark, opium-dream prose:
The Lanes I tried to follow pulsed with lightning. At each junction paths multiplied around me. As I staggered on through the furnace of that red-brick maze my fingers trailed cracked walls, unsettling a lacework of shadows in my wake., Alleys wheeled about me as I turned to take another direction, so I reached out from one wall to the next, feeling my way like a blind man, the furrows of the world deepening and multiplying as I went. Pausing to wait for an eternity the intoxication would not pass, yet to remain standing still only left me vulnerable to the widening fissures beneath my feet. If I hesitated the pavements and walls were sure to sprout coarse black hair. All were signs that suggested whoever t was that had hired Bloaters had now sent something far worse after me. So I pushed on even if it meant I had to crawl.
Casting my gaze upward provided no peace or hope of escape. A barrage balloon in the sky overhead throbbed in time with my heartbeat as distorted faces emerged from the enflamed clouds around it. As thunder filled the alleys naked strangers ran criss-crossing from one yard doorway to another. From broken windows ancient faces peered, their translucent skin lit by their bones within. All around me ack-ack fire erupted against the sounds of agonized cries and collapsing walls. And the flies again buzzing; everywhere buzzing.
Then the confines of the backstreets gave way to an overwhelming sweetness of sap, of burnt stripped bark as I found myself straying across an open green surrounded by blasted and still-burning trees. An unearthly silence fell within the square of lifeless facades surrounding me, every pathway a glittering mosaic of glass slivers, until another cataract of incendiaries enveloped the rooftops with streams of dancing blue-white flames. In the debris and embers, in the depths of the white-hot flames fluid forms, shapeless phantoms stirred and rose up, invoked in the fire. From the blackened rafters, from the spaces in between, wings unfurled and limbs were born, reaching out only to vanish again. And what did I hear crying as it was born that night? As all of my childhood haunts were devoured, the blaze of all those memories burned at once; it was the sound of one world dying as another emerged. Through the great veil of broken frames and shattered glass I glimpsed the world’s secret face.
As the dream-labyrinth that is “The Satyr” ends, the question remains: "Who is dreaming and who is the dreamed". Our view from the labyrinth (or from the wartime "trenches," psychogeographic trenches, really) it's never completely clear.
In addition to this most excellent novella, there are several shorter stories. In "The Horned Tongue," a young bookseller finds that his dead wife had had congress with the Devil. Clark does what he does best, weaving an intricate web of intrigue and betrayal, though one must not pity the young bookseller . . . Five luciferian stars for this beautiful weaving of deceipt and desire, with language itself as a supporting character (or is that "characters")?
To give a mental glimpse of the next story, “The Lost Reaches,” imagine Jan Svankmajer, Angela Carter, and David Lynch getting together to do a long story about prisoners fleeing soviet agents and finding themselves in The House of Leaves - but worse . . . on acid. This is a different tone for Clark, to be sure, but not bad-different, just different. A phantasmagoric cabinet of wonders.
“The Feast of the Sphinx” takes place in Nazi-occupied Prague. The dialogue between a prisoner and his possibly-altruistic interrogator, as well as the slippage from within the prisoner from starving artist to “the Countess” is what makes "The Feast of the Sphinx" really hum. A lot of people, a lot of readers, in fact, would say "no one really talks like that"!
You know what? You're right. No one really does talk like that . . .
AND THAT'S WHY I LIKE IT!!!
Banality is not automatically "artistic" or "daring" or "outre". Give me a pile of adjectives, strange syntax, beautiful metaphors. Shove me into that syntactical maze, never to escape. Give me the literary esoteric . . .
Give.
It.
To.
Me!
Want to read
July 31, 2015This is numbered copy 39 of 100, accompanied by a signed and illustrated postcard by the author, of a total print run of 350 copies. With new illustrations.
Read
January 23, 2021I don’t usually read Introductions until I have read and reviewed the fiction itself. However, bearing in mind that the whole book seems to be a rewritten version of two previous books that I read and reviewed 3 or 4 years ago (reviews linked above), I thought it would be appropriate to first read the Author’s Preface which, I find, gives the strong impression that the author was rushed by deadlines when producing the texts of the two previous books, and thus, in his mind, didn’t do justice to himself or to the works.
This book is a ‘salvage’ job, we are told. I keep my powder dry.
But, if I read these new versions, do I do a line by line comparison with the original ones to make some judgement as to the worth of the respective versions? Based on the tenets of the Intentional Fallacy, I do not slavishly believe that the author has improved the works with his revisions, unless I prove that for myself.
Meanwhile, with all the various unread books in my reading and reviewing pipeline and with my resistance against academic or studious comparisons (and the hard work involved!), I do not at this stage feel able to undertake a proper re-appraisal of this new book.
I may however read the revised book cold, for enjoyment, without
real-time reviewing it, bearing in mind that my memory is not good enough to make any worthwhile comments about the necessity of this new book’s existence, other than, of course, to bring it to a bigger readership, which is fair enough.
Bringing it to a new readership, yes, but the questions remain whether the original luxury book versions represent what the independent powers in Fiction Heaven or Fiction Hell always intended, and whether the new versions are accidents of over-revision without the original ‘rushed’ or spontaneous inspirational flair?
This book is a ‘salvage’ job, we are told. I keep my powder dry.
But, if I read these new versions, do I do a line by line comparison with the original ones to make some judgement as to the worth of the respective versions? Based on the tenets of the Intentional Fallacy, I do not slavishly believe that the author has improved the works with his revisions, unless I prove that for myself.
Meanwhile, with all the various unread books in my reading and reviewing pipeline and with my resistance against academic or studious comparisons (and the hard work involved!), I do not at this stage feel able to undertake a proper re-appraisal of this new book.
I may however read the revised book cold, for enjoyment, without
real-time reviewing it, bearing in mind that my memory is not good enough to make any worthwhile comments about the necessity of this new book’s existence, other than, of course, to bring it to a bigger readership, which is fair enough.
Bringing it to a new readership, yes, but the questions remain whether the original luxury book versions represent what the independent powers in Fiction Heaven or Fiction Hell always intended, and whether the new versions are accidents of over-revision without the original ‘rushed’ or spontaneous inspirational flair?
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