GORGONAEON BY JORDAN KRALL

Review by John Boden 

 
I am not a huge proponent of labels when it comes to fiction, but I am aware that they are a bit of a necessity in that they are a way for fan and potential readers to rife through the myriad of titles available.  So I would offer that this falls under the category of transgressive fiction, with one foot over the fence in weird territory.

Gorgonaeon   is an almost stream-of-consciousness affair, concerning a woman straining under the ghost of her mother and her upbringing. Chaining more weight to herself with anchors of compulsive and erratic behaviors.  There are obsessive visits to hotels and motels, exploring the objects left behind and the stains and detritus of lives passing through. There are excursions into dark ditches where carcasses hide and stagnant water stares.  We dig in the dirt and expose the wriggling white things that live beneath it, almost as a reflection of ourselves. There is crippling guilt and chasmic loneliness and self-hatred for miles and miles.
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I simply can't praise the dark and sparse tone and prose of this book enough. It truly is the work of a master tailor, dull needle and black thread between tweezered fingers, ready to stitch eyelids open and lips closed.  Ready to prick out dark letters and messages on exposed skin.
Gorgonaeon is available from Dunham's Manor Press.

GORGONAEON, one in a proposed cycle of several books, is a fragmentary and hallucinogenic reading experience.

Frequent shifts in time and perspective imbue this book with an atmosphere of paranoia and dread, but an optimistic and magical aura can be exhumed from Krall's alchemical wordplay as well. The bizarre mages are poetically stitched to an odd narrative about mental and moral disintegration to create a curious doubling effect.

GORGONAEON is a challenging yet rewarding read that will appeal to fans of grotesque surrealism.

"Jordan Krall is one of the best of the next generation of writers looking askance at modern life and able to chart its absurdities and its dangers. His books conjure up uncomfortable visions with a lucid and alienating gaze." - Jeff VanderMeer, award-winning author of THE SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY

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