In a new short story written by Anthony Brenton, the residents of the small Newfoundland and Labrador coastal town of Gulp, are driven to a frenzy when members of the community start disappearing, only for their body parts to wash up onto the shore.
The gruesome and extraordinary nature of these events has the locals sharing tales of an impossibly large ancient sea creature, their imaginations helped along by the local bar's tendency of serving a pulpy brine containing hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Soon, it’s discovered that there is a cannibalistic cult living in a cave nearby. They are sentenced to an unusually cruel form of punishment while much of the town watch and celebrate.
Brenton, who lives in Conception Bay South, began writing the narrative to “The Lowlands Gulp,” about two years ago and based it on the legend of Sawney Bean, the leader of a 17th century — there is debate over the year — cannibalistic cult in Scotland.
“It’s a Scottish folk tale, but the way the story goes, as I’ve written it, is from a couple different sources,” he said.
Brenton was attracted to the folk tale because of how bizarre it is.
“It is a real old story but it almost seems paleolithic in a weird way, like actual cavemen doing this stuff,” he said. “We wanted this first one to be a horror story and this is a nasty story.”
Brenton worked with a longtime friend of his, Steve Abbott, who did illustrations for the story.
“This is the first one in a series of books,” Brenton said. “The second is a science fiction book entitled ‘Type Zero’ that we’re working on right now.”
To keep some creative distance, Abbott would draw his illustrations based solely on Brenton’s ideas, without actually reading the story.
“Truth be told, I read it for the first time when it was completed,” Abbott said. “We just made it fun. We’d get together and we’d have so many references … movies, artists, photography and we knew that we were trying to create a world.”
And the world they created has references from different eras, in an attempt to disorient the reader.
“I put in a bunch of contradictory points for (the) timeframe as another means to disorient,” Brenton said. “I don’t want to make people uncomfortable; I just don’t want you to be complacent about what you’re reading. I think disorientation is an interesting state to be in when you’re reading.”
Abbott’s illustrations are a mixture of his love of comic books, monster and science fiction movies and his and Brenton’s respect for the work of Ralph Steadman, a frequently collaborator of author Hunter S. Thompson.
“It’s twisted but not intended to be too overly dark,” Abbott said. “The story is grimy, it is dark, it is violent, it’s not light and I think the art reflects that.”
Much like Brenton’s writing, where a combination of different styles is used, Abbott mixed different mediums like ink and watercolour.
“With this I just went cracked,” he said. “But I realized looking back that everything has a unity to it in the colour.”
He says the illustrations have a washed out, over-exposed and saturated look with yellows and reds throughout.
“I can’t help but bring up Halloween, the spooky vibe of it,” Abbott said. “I took a chance because (I tried) to separate myself from it just enough so I can still be a fan and still (get) lost in it.”
Nicole Button, Brenton’s wife, works at a marketing agency where she does a lot of proof-reading. She has acted as Brenton’s editor for nearly 17 years, editing everything from poetry, short stories and articles for media outlets.
“Content-wise, his stuff varies so much, nothing surprises me, I’m not put off by anything,” she said. “The way Anthony writes, regardless if he’s talking about cannibalistic cults or if he’s talking about the birth of our baby boy, there’s such beauty in the way that he writes things, or there is such terror in the way that he writes it, that you can appreciate it as a piece of art.”
She says any fan of horror writing would enjoy this book. But it can also be enjoyed for the writing or the illustrations separately.
There are copies of “The Lowlands Gulp” at Elaine’s Books at 208 Duckworth Street and The Dabber Hashery at 335 Duckworth Street, both in downtown St. John’s. Copies can also be purchased by contacting Brenton at [email protected].
Twitter: @AndrewLWaterman
