Eyepennies

by Andy Cox, Rik Rawling (Illustrator)

nan

Genres: Horror, Fiction

97 pages, Paperback

First published November 26, 2012

Reviews

[Franco]

a masterpiece by a truly endowed writer! It needs to be soon rediscovered!

[Jo Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

For clarity on the rating: It was exceptionally well written but I was pushing my boundaries by reading something horror and it isn't really for me. Totally lost me at the harm to animals bit - but that's my tastes, not the quality of the book.

[Dean Simons · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found the setting unconvincing - lacked detail and seemed rather superficial; both characters and plot felt a bit flat for me.

[Matt Dent · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember when the first TTA Press novella came out, in 2010. I reviewed Gary McMahon’s "The Harm" back then, and was excited at the prospect of a series of such novellas. Over two years later I was beginning to lose hope. But here it is, the first in a series of five new novellas.

And what a start it is. Mike O’Driscoll will be known to some as a columnist from TTA’s Black Static magazine, writing about the nature of horror. This is the first piece of his fiction (I think) that I’ve read, and it gives me a whole raft of new respect for his non-fiction.

Told in a fractured, non-linear style, Eyepennies follows a musician called Mark, who after surviving a near-death experience faces feelings of depression, darkness, and a sense that he didn’t come back from the other side completely right.

This is classic psychological horror, and it’s beautifully written. The prose is a dream, and rolls poetically off the page into images and metaphors that O’Driscoll paints effortlessly and with such clarity that even the abstract nature of the subject matter cannot cloud.

The plot is loosely — and chillingly — based around the life and death of the real-world musician Mark Linkous, whom O’Driscoll credits in the introduction, and those allusions give the novella a sense of realism without feeling at all disrespectful. It creates a darkly beautiful picture of the cracks running through a life from the impact point of a trauma.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. It’s one of those works where you keep reading section after section, even after having promised yourself that you’ll put it down and go to sleep. It gets into your mind and will stay with you even after you do finish it (and with the length of it at around 20,000 words, it’s something that can be read in one sitting), seeping into your thoughts.

Mike O’Driscoll has weaved an excellent novella, and weaved it well. It’s well written and the characters leap off the page with a flair that brings them to life. If this is setting the scene for the four TTA novellas to come, then I’m feeling just as excited about the prospect as I was in May 2010.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a deep affection for TTA Press (it was through the TTA zine “The Fix” that I discovered the world of the small press) and really enjoyed their first novella, Gary McMahon’s “The Harm”. It’s taken a couple of years for the next title in the series to appear but Mike O’Driscoll’s tale of a musician on the very edge of life shows the wait has been worth it. As he mentions in the introduction, the lead character Mark Linkous is written for - and bears a resemblance to - the musician and songwriter of the same name, who took his own life in 2010. ‘Eyepennies’ crafts a fictional biography charting his last days, with the story told in a fractured, non-linear style that jumps from his present day - trying to record a new album whilst suffering terribly with depression and doubt and not quite sure what is a dream and what is real life - back to various stages of his childhood (his sister passing away, his being sent to live with his grandmother, things that happened to his friends) and points in between. Told in a clear, clipped, pared-down style, this is never less than readable even though O’Driscoll tries his best to make us not like Mark at all - his terrible treatment of his wife Tess and a sequence of almost unreadable animal cruelty are two cases in point - but whilst each incident does shift your perception of him, it also leaves you wondering: is it real, or is it a dream? A novella crackling with raw power, this manages to be incredibly realistic whilst embracing hints of the supernatural, a story of the darkness for readers who want more to their horror than blood and gore. Well written, thoroughly gripping, I highly recommend this.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this disturbing novella about a musician whose outlook on life becomes troubled following a near-death experience to the extent that his mental health becomes affected and the delineations between reality and fantasy start to blur. The writing is clear-cut and succinct, with some disturbing - but not gratuitous - imagery. Whilst the author has used the real life songwriter, Mark Linkous, as a stepping stone for this novella, the reader needs no prior experience of his music to appreciate this book. And despite it being no biopic, it has made me interested in seeking out his work. Recommended.