IN THE SHADOW OF THE PHOSPHOROUS DAWN BY ROB TRUE (BOOK REVIEW)

24/5/2021

True’s voice is so distinctive and unique that it defies comparison. The only other novel I was put in mind of at all whilst reading In The Shadow Of The Phosphorous Dawn is Anna Kavan’s apocalyptic final novel Ice (1967). Like Kavan’s masterwork, True’s novel explores frank depictions of drug use and places the reader directly in the viewpoint of characters whose perspective is distorted by drug addiction and madness.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE PHOSPHOROUS DAWN BY ROB TRUE (BOOK REVIEW BY JONATHAN THORNTON )

“The filth and decay, the desolation and the bad dreams of a nowhere ghost. And every red stripe across bare girl flesh keeps the darkness from creeping up on him. Raw and ready in transcendence, to transform them into supernatural beings in dramas of played out power in love and lust with no lies. Exquisite agony of ecstasy, pleasure in pain. And he sees it and the fire in his blood burns. Mysterious diabolism in exorcism of madness in a dim mist.”

Rob True’s debut novel In The Shadow Of The Phosphorous Dawn (2021) is a dazzling and disorienting psychedelic nightmare. True has created a powerful work that evades all attempts to pin it down. Capturing both the gritty, street level view of a crime novel and the hallucinogenic visions of ritualistic horror, In The Shadow Of The Phosphorous Dawn is both striking and original. True’s prose is both shockingly raw and full of carefully crafted stream-of-consciousness imagery. The novel is bleak and violent, but never gratuitously so, and this is balanced out by a knack for surreal and haunting imagery and a genuine compassion for the author’s bruised and broken characters. While it is sometimes a challenging read, it amply pays back the attentive reader, and is a wonderful example of just how innovative and exciting horror and crime fiction can be at their best.

Carl is reeling from his brother’s suicide. His relationship with his girlfriend Anna is on the rocks, he is slipping back into his destructive old habits of taking drugs and dealing them for small-time local gangster Mick in the dilapidated estate they live in. He soon has darker concerns to face, as a wave of brutal and bloody ritualistic gangland killings sweeps the estate, spectral shadow men keep following him, and the line between reality, nightmare and hallucination starts to dissolve. As the deaths pile up and Carl’s already tenuous relationships collapse, Carl finds himself being sucked further and further into a horrendous nightmare he has no chance of unravelling.

True places the reader squarely in Carl’s perspective, and the novel is a claustrophobic exploration of this character’s descent. Through stream-of-consciousness prose, we experience first-hand Carl’s worrying lapses of memory, his barely-controllable violent urges, his hallucinations, drug-fuelled or otherwise. True expertly portrays the disorientation from Carl’s troubled headspace, and like Carl the reader is constantly kept of their guard and questioning what is real and what is not. There are no easy markers to separate reality from hallucination, nightmare from lived experience, and as Carl’s state exacerbates, any distinction between the two melts away. The rawness of True’s prose and the expert control he exerts over perspective and viewpoint combine for an incredibly intense and disturbing front-seat journey into madness.

Carl’s personal descent is mirrored by his surroundings. True vividly describes a working-class milieu with a surreal and apocalyptic edge. The desolate council estates, disused gas stations and crumbling warehouses are transformed by a psychedelic touch into a ravaged and bleak landscape, hinting at the devastating impact of years of austerity and economic collapse whilst reflecting the shattered, fragmented mind of the novel’s protagonist. Streets full of faceless crowds, alleyways haunted by sinister shadows or familiar faces, all combine together to create a perfect reflection of Carl’s alienation and depression. In this way the novel calls to mind the early work of J. G. Ballard like The Drowned World (1962), where the postapocalyptic landscape is as much a reflection of the protagonist’s inner world as a physical location, but True is a much more visceral and immediate writer than Ballard ever was.

True’s voice is so distinctive and unique that it defies comparison. The only other novel I was put in mind of at all whilst reading In The Shadow Of The Phosphorous Dawn is Anna Kavan’s apocalyptic final novel Ice (1967). Like Kavan’s masterwork, True’s novel explores frank depictions of drug use and places the reader directly in the viewpoint of characters whose perspective is distorted by drug addiction and madness. Ice and Phosphorous Dawn also both use the protagonist’s incredibly dysfunctional personal relationship to excavate humanity’s darkest and most disturbing impulses. In True’s novel, Carl’s relationship with Anna is deeply unhealthy, with both characters repeatedly unable to escape each other’s orbit, despite the fact that they share nothing but sexual fascination and their own brand of nihilistic solipsism. This reflects Carl’s other fractious relationships, whether with his father who abused him or his sister who cares for him, or his tendency for violence. Carl is a dark and disturbed character, but the novel is remarkable for the empathy with which it explores his personality. True never excuses Carl’s sometimes horrendous behaviour, but he shows us where Carl’s nihilism and detachment from the world come from, and how pitiful and tragic his struggle against it is.

As the novel progresses and Carl’s grip on reality becomes ever more tenuous, True’s writing rises to a powerful crescendo of nightmare intensity. Are Carl and Anna connected to the mysterious violent killings, or do the violent killings simply reflect the worst of their destructive impulses? Phosphorous Dawn is not interested in comforting the reader with simple answers or clean resolutions, but rather embracing and exploring the chaos and the darkness. Troubling, vivid and unforgettable, True’s novel will haunt the reader long after they have turned the final page. It is a bold and exciting debut, and I eagerly await more from Rob True.

In the Shadow of the Phosphorous Dawn by Rob True

Carl, reeling from the death of his brother, is drowning in visions. Followed by shadow men through the crumbling outer regions of the city. Unable to trust those closest to him. Doubting his own reality. As a wave of brutal, ritualistic gangland killings sweeps through the underworld, Carl's involvement with a life he thought he had left behind catches up with him, with terrifying results. In the Shadow of the Phosphorus Dawn is the raw, brilliant debut novel from Rob True, operating at the bleeding edge of crime and psychedelic horror.