Scott Graham
The urge to call this tale Lovecraftian is strong, but I pull back from that description. I will go so far as to say that there is a Lovecraft inspiration present in the incarnation of the fantastical aspects in the narrative, but it’s missing the demented nature, i.e, the craziness of a Lovecraft story. Two friends and coworkers pursue all the fishing holes of the Catskill Mountain region, and ignore the warnings of one stream, the ill omened Dutchman’s Creek. Told in two timelines, one historic, incorporated within and bisecting the other more contemporary tale. The historical story stands separate from the contemporary tale and is effective on its own. The contemporary tale builds on the historical story that exists as a warning to the curious. The reader is given all the information they need to suss out the way the story goes, but the narrative imagery is described so well that it plays out very vividly in the reader’s movie screen of the mind. Nightmarish and shudder inducing.
The urge to call this tale Lovecraftian is strong, but I pull back from that description. I will go so far as to say that there is a Lovecraft inspiration present in the incarnation of the fantastical aspects in the narrative, but it’s missing the demented nature, i.e, the craziness of a Lovecraft story. Two friends and coworkers pursue all the fishing holes of the Catskill Mountain region, and ignore the warnings of one stream, the ill omened Dutchman’s Creek. Told in two timelines, one historic, incorporated within and bisecting the other more contemporary tale. The historical story stands separate from the contemporary tale and is effective on its own. The contemporary tale builds on the historical story that exists as a warning to the curious. The reader is given all the information they need to suss out the way the story goes, but the narrative imagery is described so well that it plays out very vividly in the reader’s movie screen of the mind. Nightmarish and shudder inducing.