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Charcoal
Thomas Kemp, the Libertine, turned cruelty, torture and humiliation into works of art. It was said that he had given his soul to something inhuman to be part of artistic immortality. It was said that his very ashes were used to make a set of charcoals still imbued with his spirit. When Shannon Hernandez, a traumatized and repressed art student, is tasked to draw with them by her lecherous professor, she feels a change in herself and something menacing calling out to her. She is offered a chance to create work that breaks boundaries and hearts alike but comes bound with a connection to a legacy of immortal terrors.
176 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 25, 2022
3 people are currently reading
67 people want to read
About the author
Garrett Cook
60 books243 followersWinner 1st Annual Ultimate Bizarro Showdown!
Garrett Cook was born in Wenham, Massachusetts July 19th, 1982. There are other details, but they're depressing or banal, with the exception of his haunted birthplace, his struggle with bipolar and a brief, unfortunate cancer scare. Yawn. Garrett Cook's work is far more interesting. He examines crises of faith and conscience through a pulpy,surreal or magorealistic lens to create magical, paranoid worlds that he hopes will entertain, antagonize and endear you. His books Murderland part 1:h8, Murderland 2:Life During Wartime and Archelon Ranch and Jimmy Plush, Teddy Bear Detective are available on Amazon. He is one of the creators and editors of the magazine Imperial Youth Review.
What people are saying about Murderland Part 1: H8
"Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps that meat cleaver is our best hope for salvation. Or maybe he belongs in an asylum. MURDERLAND is a brutally shocking book. Demented. Logical. Disturbing. It can be crudely powerful one moment, tenderly skillful the next, so the reader never knows what’s coming. There’s no way to prepare. No way to protect yourself. Garrett Cook’s work has an edge … and it’s at your throat."-
Robert Dunbar, author of The Shore and Martyrs and Monsters
"The offbeat brilliance of this book will freak your face off-"
Gina Ranalli, author of Mother Puncher, Sky Tongues and House of Fallen Leaves
"I have not read a debut novel this good in a long time (or as far as I could remember)"- Jordan Krall, author of Piecemeal June and Squidpulp Blues
"An intense, satirical and above all entertaining read"- Andersen Prunty, author of Zerostrata and the Overwhelming Urge
"A savage, very original satire that openly mocks the American demigod-like worship of worthless celebrity with a future where despicable murderers become our new focus of adoration. It's as farcical as Swift's "A Modest Proposal," yet no less poignant."-
bravenewworks.com
"Action! Explosions! Hot broads! Garrett Cook is two-fisted Bizarro pulp. I love his stories"-
Jeff Burk, author of SHATNERQUAKE
Garrett Cook was born in Wenham, Massachusetts July 19th, 1982. There are other details, but they're depressing or banal, with the exception of his haunted birthplace, his struggle with bipolar and a brief, unfortunate cancer scare. Yawn. Garrett Cook's work is far more interesting. He examines crises of faith and conscience through a pulpy,surreal or magorealistic lens to create magical, paranoid worlds that he hopes will entertain, antagonize and endear you. His books Murderland part 1:h8, Murderland 2:Life During Wartime and Archelon Ranch and Jimmy Plush, Teddy Bear Detective are available on Amazon. He is one of the creators and editors of the magazine Imperial Youth Review.
What people are saying about Murderland Part 1: H8
"Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps that meat cleaver is our best hope for salvation. Or maybe he belongs in an asylum. MURDERLAND is a brutally shocking book. Demented. Logical. Disturbing. It can be crudely powerful one moment, tenderly skillful the next, so the reader never knows what’s coming. There’s no way to prepare. No way to protect yourself. Garrett Cook’s work has an edge … and it’s at your throat."-
Robert Dunbar, author of The Shore and Martyrs and Monsters
"The offbeat brilliance of this book will freak your face off-"
Gina Ranalli, author of Mother Puncher, Sky Tongues and House of Fallen Leaves
"I have not read a debut novel this good in a long time (or as far as I could remember)"- Jordan Krall, author of Piecemeal June and Squidpulp Blues
"An intense, satirical and above all entertaining read"- Andersen Prunty, author of Zerostrata and the Overwhelming Urge
"A savage, very original satire that openly mocks the American demigod-like worship of worthless celebrity with a future where despicable murderers become our new focus of adoration. It's as farcical as Swift's "A Modest Proposal," yet no less poignant."-
bravenewworks.com
"Action! Explosions! Hot broads! Garrett Cook is two-fisted Bizarro pulp. I love his stories"-
Jeff Burk, author of SHATNERQUAKE
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
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December 14, 2022A dark allegory about the nature of art and the monsters that create it. Short, digestible chapters not only keep the story moving but the keep heavy subject matter from ever becoming too much to bear. Couple that with Cook's idiosyncratic prose and this haunting novel turns into something more akin to a song. I honestly found it as beautiful as it was disturbing. His best work yet.
August 22, 2023
This book is total nightmare fuel, I found it to be an utterly compelling psychological horror that was terrifying but I couldn't put it down, it felt like a perfect blend of gothic and contemporary horror with haunting almost poetic prose, I loved the ambiguity that left me questioning if things were actually happening or just in the characters mind, it adds so much to the unease and rising terror, I can't say much without spoiling but this was a fantastic(frightening) read! Thankyou as always to the awesome clashbooks for sending a copy my way
November 7, 2023
Charcoal is dark, really really dark and beautifully constructed.
Shannon is an Art student, who stumbles upon allegedly cursed charcoals. These are a match and the pieces she creates with them are her best work yet. But it came at a price...
The blurb itself doesn't say much about what you'll find in this story, but it'd be really hard to give more information without spoiling so I won't venture myself any further on this.
Charcoal is a bit "intellectualized" and sometimes cumbersome. I struggled to get into the first few pages but once passed the initial blocage the story revealed itself.
I really liked the twisted minds in this story and how everything intertwined.
I do have one complaint, though, about Rem. Rem is a pansexual friend of Shannon's with whom we encounter some details regarding LGBTQIA daily life. I'm not complaining about this, quite the opposite in fact as I'm willing to discover the mindset and everyday struggles of the community in works of fiction not being a member myself, but this whole part lacks goals. In the end, it felt like Rem and his sex life were in this story just for the hell of it. They didn't add anything to the plot and, if removed, the book won't feel like it's missing anything...
Charcoal loses half a star for this last remark and still gets a well-deserved 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 anyway!
Shannon is an Art student, who stumbles upon allegedly cursed charcoals. These are a match and the pieces she creates with them are her best work yet. But it came at a price...
The blurb itself doesn't say much about what you'll find in this story, but it'd be really hard to give more information without spoiling so I won't venture myself any further on this.
Charcoal is a bit "intellectualized" and sometimes cumbersome. I struggled to get into the first few pages but once passed the initial blocage the story revealed itself.
I really liked the twisted minds in this story and how everything intertwined.
I do have one complaint, though, about Rem. Rem is a pansexual friend of Shannon's with whom we encounter some details regarding LGBTQIA daily life. I'm not complaining about this, quite the opposite in fact as I'm willing to discover the mindset and everyday struggles of the community in works of fiction not being a member myself, but this whole part lacks goals. In the end, it felt like Rem and his sex life were in this story just for the hell of it. They didn't add anything to the plot and, if removed, the book won't feel like it's missing anything...
Charcoal loses half a star for this last remark and still gets a well-deserved 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 anyway!
November 5, 2022
Literary nightmare fuel at its finest
Readers of Cook's earlier novel THE GOD OF HUNGRY WALLS will quickly recognize the familiar voice, blending Gothic and contemporary horror sensibilities with his own unflinching brand of perversity and social commentary. This, however, is an altogether more mature, focused, personal, surer handed work. A slow-burn Faustian nightmare that explores the history of cruelty, hubris, hypocrisy and inequality in the art world, and what happens when a depraved master's tools are passed along to turn the tables of old power imbalances. It's hard to discuss further without giving too much away, but rest assured, you're in for a wild ride that's both gut-wrenching and thought-provoking.
Readers of Cook's earlier novel THE GOD OF HUNGRY WALLS will quickly recognize the familiar voice, blending Gothic and contemporary horror sensibilities with his own unflinching brand of perversity and social commentary. This, however, is an altogether more mature, focused, personal, surer handed work. A slow-burn Faustian nightmare that explores the history of cruelty, hubris, hypocrisy and inequality in the art world, and what happens when a depraved master's tools are passed along to turn the tables of old power imbalances. It's hard to discuss further without giving too much away, but rest assured, you're in for a wild ride that's both gut-wrenching and thought-provoking.
May 17, 2022
I got this book as a special preorder from Clash Books, which puts the “lit” back in literary, as they say! It’ll be out for the rest of you hoi polloi next year. I knew to order it because I’ve been following Garrett Cook’s career since our days at the dear departed Marlboro College. Lit and Garrett promised a literary horror experience, and delivered.
We begin in the scariest place of all- art school! Shannon Rodriguez is a student MassArt who has talent and drive but also substantial self-doubt. This is made worse by the fact she’s a Dominicana in a largely white male dominated space and someone with a lot of childhood trauma. Professors skeeve on her, “that guy” that’s in every class doesn’t take her seriously. Art is hard.
What for it but to become part of a Faustian lineage? Thomas Kemp, a nihilistic artist in Victorian London dedicates himself to wickedness and sadism, making art out of other’s pain, eventually going so far as to inflict as much as he can himself in order to depict it. He has his ashes, when he dies, made into drawing charcoals. A skeevy professor suggests Shannon use them (for a consideration, of course) to really bring out the artist in her. She does, and it does, but it threatens to bring her down. Kemp himself was part of a chain of artists sponsored by a shadowy supernatural force, one interested in pushing art and evil to its extremes. The opportunities and costs are high, as is usually the deal with your Faust situations.
One good thing Cook does is vary up prose style considerably between works. There is none of the flippancy found in his earlier “bizarro” (roughly, surrealist horror) work. That’s not to say everything is self-serious, and the close attention to interpersonal detail in one or two relationships that you can see in other works comes out here- dorm room romances amidst communal couches and cheap weed. But Kemp and the charcoals bring Shannon to another world, as manifested by the murders of crows that follow Shannon around — in reality? In imagination? — consuming her traumas, past and present, making her…
Well, here, Cook presents few easy answers. Just what is the relationship between monstrosity and art? Is Shannon producing better work under Kemp’s influence, or is that just something her douchebag professors and peers say? What exactly is the potential cost to Shannon (note, it involves murder, but mostly of people who suck)? “Charcoal” was written and published in the midst of numerous debates about the relationship between art and artist. It also comes from a scene, horror fiction, that has not altogether handled these questions well (on any “side”) and depicts an art world that’s pretty bad with reconciling morality (or just functional, non-harmful behavior) with its ideas of genius. At some points in the book, Cook seems to come down on the side of the idea that artists of sufficient evil do deserve to be cast aside, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the point, or the only perspective taken.
I don’t want to spoil the ending, but in the end, Shannon has to reckon with her own power and agency, and when she does, this opens doors. It’s not a direct splitting off with the evil engine behind her artistic rise- it is not a “cancellation.” I’m not entirely sure what it is. A reconciliation, perhaps? In any event, this was a thought-provoking and well-written work, and you all should buy it when the publisher starts putting it out for more wide release, especially all you horror heads. ****’
We begin in the scariest place of all- art school! Shannon Rodriguez is a student MassArt who has talent and drive but also substantial self-doubt. This is made worse by the fact she’s a Dominicana in a largely white male dominated space and someone with a lot of childhood trauma. Professors skeeve on her, “that guy” that’s in every class doesn’t take her seriously. Art is hard.
What for it but to become part of a Faustian lineage? Thomas Kemp, a nihilistic artist in Victorian London dedicates himself to wickedness and sadism, making art out of other’s pain, eventually going so far as to inflict as much as he can himself in order to depict it. He has his ashes, when he dies, made into drawing charcoals. A skeevy professor suggests Shannon use them (for a consideration, of course) to really bring out the artist in her. She does, and it does, but it threatens to bring her down. Kemp himself was part of a chain of artists sponsored by a shadowy supernatural force, one interested in pushing art and evil to its extremes. The opportunities and costs are high, as is usually the deal with your Faust situations.
One good thing Cook does is vary up prose style considerably between works. There is none of the flippancy found in his earlier “bizarro” (roughly, surrealist horror) work. That’s not to say everything is self-serious, and the close attention to interpersonal detail in one or two relationships that you can see in other works comes out here- dorm room romances amidst communal couches and cheap weed. But Kemp and the charcoals bring Shannon to another world, as manifested by the murders of crows that follow Shannon around — in reality? In imagination? — consuming her traumas, past and present, making her…
Well, here, Cook presents few easy answers. Just what is the relationship between monstrosity and art? Is Shannon producing better work under Kemp’s influence, or is that just something her douchebag professors and peers say? What exactly is the potential cost to Shannon (note, it involves murder, but mostly of people who suck)? “Charcoal” was written and published in the midst of numerous debates about the relationship between art and artist. It also comes from a scene, horror fiction, that has not altogether handled these questions well (on any “side”) and depicts an art world that’s pretty bad with reconciling morality (or just functional, non-harmful behavior) with its ideas of genius. At some points in the book, Cook seems to come down on the side of the idea that artists of sufficient evil do deserve to be cast aside, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the point, or the only perspective taken.
I don’t want to spoil the ending, but in the end, Shannon has to reckon with her own power and agency, and when she does, this opens doors. It’s not a direct splitting off with the evil engine behind her artistic rise- it is not a “cancellation.” I’m not entirely sure what it is. A reconciliation, perhaps? In any event, this was a thought-provoking and well-written work, and you all should buy it when the publisher starts putting it out for more wide release, especially all you horror heads. ****’
April 22, 2024
Where has Garrett Cook been all my life? This story, his writing, this book...it is one of the most engrossing books I've read in a while. I don't know if all of his books are as well written as this one, but I plan to find out.
Shannon is an art student plagued by self-doubt brought on by life experience and interactions with peers and skeevy professors. She's had to fight for recognition her entire life. One day her gross art professor brings a set of charcoals to class that is rumored to be made out of the cremains of the notorious artist Thomas Kemp, aka The Libertine. He spooks the class and then dares Shannon to pick them up and draw in front of the class. She does so reluctantly, but instantly finds she has gotten into something way bigger than she expected. She comes back to the professor to use the charcoals again and again and finds herself doing things she never thought she would do. Maybe there's something to the legend of the Libertine and the charcoals he left behind. All that's certain is that Shannon can never go back. Everything comes with a cost.
If you are into splatterpunk and extreme horror but yearn for something more literary, Charcoal might be right up your alley. I loved everything about this book, from the well written story to the Audible narration to the cover art.
I was gifted an Audible code from Fright Night Audio. All views expressed here are my own. Terri Lynne Hudson did a great job narrating this book. She effectively portrayed the Shannon's inner turmoil, keeping me on edge right with her. I rarely have so few words to say about a book I loved so much. Go read it.
Shannon is an art student plagued by self-doubt brought on by life experience and interactions with peers and skeevy professors. She's had to fight for recognition her entire life. One day her gross art professor brings a set of charcoals to class that is rumored to be made out of the cremains of the notorious artist Thomas Kemp, aka The Libertine. He spooks the class and then dares Shannon to pick them up and draw in front of the class. She does so reluctantly, but instantly finds she has gotten into something way bigger than she expected. She comes back to the professor to use the charcoals again and again and finds herself doing things she never thought she would do. Maybe there's something to the legend of the Libertine and the charcoals he left behind. All that's certain is that Shannon can never go back. Everything comes with a cost.
If you are into splatterpunk and extreme horror but yearn for something more literary, Charcoal might be right up your alley. I loved everything about this book, from the well written story to the Audible narration to the cover art.
I was gifted an Audible code from Fright Night Audio. All views expressed here are my own. Terri Lynne Hudson did a great job narrating this book. She effectively portrayed the Shannon's inner turmoil, keeping me on edge right with her. I rarely have so few words to say about a book I loved so much. Go read it.
January 24, 2023
Charcoal's strength is in its confrontation. A Faustian examination of racial and queer inequity, trauma, sexual assault, and PTSD. The main character's art literally drives the narrative, except on those occasions when she can wrest back control. An examination of power that questions whether or not it must corrupt, or do we choose to reproduce the violence of the privilaged in our deeply unjust society when we gain acess to power?
January 7, 2023
Garrett Cook uses words to paint a world as psychologically disturbing as a Bosch painting. His tale of a Faustian bargain veers from London 1885 to the present as two artists question their legacy, their sanity and their humanity. A very compelling read.
March 16, 2024
This was a dark surreal journey written in such a way that enhances the unsettling feeling.
Terri does a great job with the narration fright night is on top of their game.
If you enjoy literary horror that blurs the line between reality and nightmare this is definitely for you 5stars
Terri does a great job with the narration fright night is on top of their game.
If you enjoy literary horror that blurs the line between reality and nightmare this is definitely for you 5stars
March 27, 2023
A gripping psychological horror that will have you finishing it in a day.
April 26, 2024
Heavy, haunting and beautifully written.
June 10, 2024
The reviews are not kidding when they mention similarities to early Clive Barker. Garrett's prose is enchanting while horrifying all at once.
April 30, 2024
Cook knows how to suck you into a story. Even though it has birds in it (I have ornithophobia), I couldn’t stop reading/listening to it.
Shannon finds charcoals that brings drawings to life. Not only that, the birds can peck away memories to feed on them. When the ghost in the charcoal calls to her, does she take the offer? Or does she go her own way?
I know, ghost in charcoal, wtf am I right? But stay with me, kids, it makes more than enough sense when you get into it. What Cook can do with something so ordinary and turn it sinister reminds me of Bentley Little. It’s a bit of Dorian Gray meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (with the memories). I prrrrromise it works.
And the narration adds so much to it. Cook’s stories have something about them that in the wrong narrators voice, they would not be as effective but this one… I tell you it got me. Terri Lynne Hudson did a remarkable job bringing CHARCOAL to life.
A must read/listen and A HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMEND 5/5.
Shannon finds charcoals that brings drawings to life. Not only that, the birds can peck away memories to feed on them. When the ghost in the charcoal calls to her, does she take the offer? Or does she go her own way?
I know, ghost in charcoal, wtf am I right? But stay with me, kids, it makes more than enough sense when you get into it. What Cook can do with something so ordinary and turn it sinister reminds me of Bentley Little. It’s a bit of Dorian Gray meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (with the memories). I prrrrromise it works.
And the narration adds so much to it. Cook’s stories have something about them that in the wrong narrators voice, they would not be as effective but this one… I tell you it got me. Terri Lynne Hudson did a remarkable job bringing CHARCOAL to life.
A must read/listen and A HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMEND 5/5.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews