Press QuotesLike a demonic angel on a skateboard, like a resurrected Artaud on methadrine, like a tattletale psychiatrist turned rodeo clown, Clay McLeod Chapman races back and forth along the serrated edges of everyday American madness, objectively recording each whimper of anguish, each whisper of skewed desire. This is strong stuff, intense stuff, sometimes disturbing stuff, but I think the many who admire Chuck Palahniuk will admire Chapman as well. Like a collection of David Sedaris short stories, these are imaginative, slightly surreal tales that will stay with you for years. Clay McLeod Chapman is like Stephen King transmogrified into a post-punk preacher poet. Garrison Keillor on acid. Chapman [is] the literary descendent of Edgar Allen Poe... If Chapman keeps up with the oddball characters, well-crafted stories, and critical plaudits, that Faulkner guy had better look out. Think Edward Gorey. Think Charles Adams. Think Stephen King. But think beyond any of those practitioners of the dark arts. Chapman’s pieces go past the macabre, the offbeat, the unexpected, to make strong statements about the human condition. Like a younger, weirder, hornier, and, well, alive Eudora Welty... A taste of Southern Fried American Gothic that will send shivers down your spine. Chapman is a master of the short story format. His writing is dark, unpredictable, and poetic. Downtown hipster raconteur Clay McLeod Chapman wears his heart on his sleeve – a bloody, still-beating organ safety-pinned to his cuffs. [A] whimsical yet bone-chilling romantic. Clay McLeod Chapman is downtown’s hardest working man. Clay McLeod Chapman has a distinctly haunting prose that brings to mind a more eloquent Chuck Palahniuk. Guerilla storytelling. A rare thing indeed. It would be simplistic to describe Clay McLeod Chapman’s stories as disturbing. His words often trigger an assault to the listener’s imagination using noxious imagery, but just as quickly they can instill affecting, even life-affirming notions. If [Chapman] continues to write plays – by all means, he should – this whiz-bang may end up out-Barding the Bard. Clay McLeod Chapman is a cool dude. He embodies the notion that inside every nerd lurks a superhero and a story that wants to come out. The age of the great horror stars is long past, but tucked away in a dark basement theater under the bustling street life of the East Village, an intense moon-faced artist is gleefully summoning some of those old ghosts . . . With the trembling voice of Vincent Price and the sinister presence of Boris Karloff, Clay McLeod Chapman - playwright and co-star of The Pumpkin Pie Show, a series of gripping, often unnerving short plays rooted in classic gothic literature - has been unsettling audiences with this evolving collection for a decade... ...These are weird, creepy tales, but they are more than that. At his best, Mr. Chapman uses the macabre to explore the humanity of his characters and reveal an almost spiritual side to the horrific. Lovecraft once wrote that “the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown,” but in these stories, set in a banal, melancholy, lonely landscape, the unknown can also seem sublime.
|