Original Release
West Vine Press Rerelease
First published back in March of 2014, Scottish author Chris Kelso’s novella ‘The Black Dog Eats The City’ offered up a dark-slab of experimental fiction, projecting a bleak and miserable existence within a soul-destroying dystopian future.
The novella was originally published by Omnium Gatherum Publishing, with artwork and illustrations by Kelso himself. However, Kelso was never truly happy with how the book turned out. Therefore, in November 2022, a revised version of the book was published via West Vine Press, which included different artwork, the removal of some aspects from the original text which Kelso wasn’t happy with, a new intro, and two afterword pieces from Kelso.
The author describes this rerelease as the definitive version. The following review is of this rerelease.
The story goes that the Black Dog scavenges the dark lanes of the mind. Those stalked by this relentless beast, come to know those lonesome footpaths will never be safe again. For the Black Dog known to be ten times worse that the most crippling depression And it’s spreading like wildfire.
Lester Proctor knew this all too well. His own wife and family had fallen to the beast. Lester was now determined not to become the next casualty to the Black Dog. He’d heard of a miracle drug called ‘The Cure’ – a lozenge developed by Shell scientists to help subdue the effects of the Black Dog scourge.
In the pits of his despair, Lester made the decision to track down the makers of this drug, obtain it, and then disseminate the drug to as many people as possible. Lester Proctor wanted to survive. He wanted others to survive too. However, first he had to get out of Wire City because there were just no doctors there that could help.
Although, it appeared Proctor wasn’t the only one to be taking to the heavily pot-holed roads. Almost everyone appeared to be leaving Wire City and heading to one of two destinations – Ersatz or Shell County. Those stopping off at Ersatz had given up on trying to outrun the Black Dog. Those passing through to reach Shell, were instead driven by a deep desire to survive and hopefully receive The Cure.
To say Ersatz was a dreaded, bitter and broken destination was going light on the city. The many litter-strewn streets were nothing but blocked arteries of crime and corruption. A cesspit of apathy, deviance and immorality. A concrete hellhole for those who have chosen to give up on everything and succumb to the Dog.
Although people did exist there. The inhabitants of Ersatz had their own lives and stories to tell. Kricfulusi and Baby Guts for example. Two fine examples of Ersatz’s prime demographic. Baby Guts owned a hock shop where he offered his untrained medical services to the people of this rotten city. Some might call him a butcher. But in Ersatz, no one cared.
Despite the oppressive presence of the Black Dog, there was still an avenue of escape for those who could afford it. You could upload your mind to the Hollow Earth simulation. Take yourself away from the misery, to instead embed yourself into an existence far less tangible. Less cruel. Less real. But to do so cost a lot. A kidney, gallbladder and both testicles to be precise. That was the price Fairfax paid for entry to Hollow Earth. Luckily, backyard surgeons are aplenty in Ersatz.
It would be fair to say life in the city had become cheap. So cheap, no one was overly concerned about their own. Life was being replicated into synthesised immitants.
One such immitant was Thomas Gale no.215. Since becoming self-aware, the immitant had become desperate to experience erotic objectification. And who better suited to engage with in such sexual interactivity, than a replica model identical to himself in every definable way? Of course, it was forbidden. A taboo, even within Ersatz. However, that was life now. Everyone searching for escape. Looking behind the closed door. Hoping for there to be something else, some way out, some existence that actually meant something more than this…
Before embarking on the doom and gloom of this nihilistic venture into this depressing dystopian future, Kelso sets the overall scene with a brief intro, in which he talks of the book’s initial reception, his dislike for certain aspects of the original publication, and what he was ultimately trying to achieve with the text. It’s an open, frank and candid introductory piece, which thoroughly whets the appetite for the evocative piece to come.
Indeed, what follows is every bit of what Kelso alluded to in his intro. A dark and depressingly bleak piece of almost inhuman-like misery. The text is raw. Fucking raw as maggot-infested roadkill. And the voice punches that much harder because of it.
Essentially, the story (as a whole) is made up on a series of vignette-like chapters, which integrate and blend together to form a broad cross-section of this gaping wound in our existence. It’s design and construction bears base resemblances to Hubert Selby Jr’s ‘Last Exit To Brooklyn’ (1966), holding up a Cronenberg meets ‘Blade Runner’ (1982) premise, concept and backdrop.
The coarse of the book reads like a series of falling dominos. One chapter knocking over the next. The pieces tumbling in disarray, to be left abandoned as our voyeuristic perspective moves with the next falling piece.
At it’s heart is the fundamental concept of crippling depression. A black dog skulking through the darkened streets of our minds. A malevolent entity, which to those affected, can feel like a physical beast, dragging them down in an unending onslaught of teeth and claws.
We see the symbolism within so much of this near-poetically spilt blood. The traps. The prisons. The cruelty of it all. To escape is to dream of something better, but for most inflicted with this terrible curse on the soul, there is little they can do other than watch as their lives are cruelly dismantled.
Of course, the joke of hope is thrown around like the end to all worries. Kelso announces ‘The Cure’ with an detectable fakeness to this alleged White Knight. ‘The Cure’ – a bitterly sarcastic name for a “miracle cure” against depression. The crushing honesty is choking.
You’ve probably astutely surmised by now that this is an altogether difficult read. It smothers you with a blanket of gloom. The multiple sprinklings of comedy don’t provide the light relief you might wish they would, but instead, as with Selby Jr, it feels almost in mockery. A fakeness to the smiles. The epitome of cruel juxtaposition. The faintest chuckle, a forced reaction just to leave something other than nihilistic bitterness on the table. Our honesty to a purposefully dishonest set up. Kelso, the cruel puppet master to our very base reactions.
That, in essence, is the genius of the book. A brave, honest piece of literature that shows the world what’s beneath the skin. A brutal and blunt illustration callously depicting the cold torment which comes hand-in-hand with acceptance of a pointless, soulless fate.
The prose Kelso utilises throughout the book does a real service to this. A further removal from our established way. A immitant of a novel. Dialogue almost indistinguishable from the rest of the narrative. What’s said, or not said, what’s thought, or not thought, so easy to slip through the cracks in the pavement if you don’t keep a close eye.
As already mentioned, Kelso’s voice in this offering is coarse, raw and intentionally broken. An author who’s spent the entire night sitting on a cliff edge screaming into the nothingness of the abyss, to return with a croaking, gravel-like voice. His choice of words all carefully selected, because each one hurts his raw throat. Abrupt conciseness his intention, rather than a more flowing, calming articulation.
This isn’t an easy read. It’s callous and uncaring in both its subject and delivery. It stays in your head, planting seeds poised to gestate in your mind. In its success is the admission of some of our worst traits – namely apathy, self-loathing, acceptance of hopelessness, dishonesty, and faux-goodwill to your fellow man. Indeed, what might feel like comradery is nothing but a surface-deep sham. There is no standing shoulder-to-shoulder with those beside you, but instead a deep-routed selfishness left to fester behind the canopy of false benevolence.
It's a bastard of an evocative novel, drenched in nihilism and a depressing disposition for the surrender of the human soul. Or at least the compassionate decency that was once within it.
The novel runs for a total of 106 pages (which in the hardback are unnumbered).
© DLS Reviews
