Pulped fiction just got a whole lot scarier... "An insidiously disquieting tale, flavourfully told. What begins as a dark comedy of book collecting gradually accumulates a profound sense of occult dread, which lingers long after the book is finished. It's a real addition to the literature of the uncanny and an impressive debut for its uncompromising author." RAMSEY CAMPBELL, author of the Brichester Mythos trilogy Few books are treasured. Most linger in the dusty purgatory of the bookshelf, the attic, the charity shop, their sallow pages filled with superfluous knowledge. And with stories. Darker than ink, paler than paper, something is rustling through their pages. Harris delights in collecting the unloved. And in helping people. Or so he says. He wonders if you have anything to donate. To his 'children'. Used books are his game. Neat is sweet; battered is better. Tears, stains, broken spines - ugly doesn't matter. Not a jot. And if you've left a little of yourself between the pages - a receipt or ticket, a mislaid letter, a scrawled note or number - that's just perfect. He might call back. Hangover Square meets Naked Lunch through the lens of a classic M. R. James ghost story. To hell and back again (and again) via Whitby, Scarborough and the Yorkshire Moors. Enjoy your Mobius-trip. "To a soundtrack of wasps, The Pale Ones unsettles in the way of a parable by some contemporary, edgeland Lovecraft, or another of the authors the used-book dealers in this story no doubt seek out, Arthur Machen. The unnerving images which flicker in a sagging English landscape of charity shops, seaside bed and breakfasts and amusement arcades, washed with stale beer, linger in my imagination ages after reading." ANTHONY CARTWRIGHT, author of Heartland, BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime
Industry Reviews
"The nameless narrator of Bartholomew Bennett's The Pale Ones is a washed-up thirtysomething whose girlfriend has left him and fled to Japan. Trawling charity shops for valuable books and selling them online, he meets a fellow dealer and is drawn into an ambiguous relationship with the obnoxious Harris. They leave London and head north, ostensibly to collect books from charity shops and split the proceeds. But Harris has a mesmerising hold over people - our narrator included - and takes more than he gives. Bennett's short novel is notable for the gradual, creeping unease with which he imbues a series of apparently mundane events, bringing to mind the subtle horrors of Robert Aickman's short stories. The leisurely, unsettling narrative includes some startlingly graphic images: 'The helix of his left ear partially eaten away by a sore the colour of a waterlogged raisin.' The Pale Ones is an impressive debut." - The Guardian; "The Pale Ones unsettles in the way of a parable by some contemporary, edgeland Lovecraft. The unnerving images which flicker in a sagging English landscape of charity shops, seaside bed and breakfasts and amusement arcades linger in my imagination ages after reading." - Anthony Cartwright, author of Heartland, BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime; "What begins as a dark comedy of book collecting gradually accumulates a profound sense of occult dread, which lingers long after the book is finished. It's a real addition to the literature of the uncanny and an impressive debut for its uncompromising author." - Ramsey Campbell, author of the Brichester Mythos trilogy
