When I began The Dark Country, I thought I was writing a novel. What took shape, however, was a series of fragments, mysteries, and fables, themselves mirroring the shape of the Old West in my imagination.
I grew up on westerns, you see, the old John Wayne films—classics like Stagecoach, The Searchers, and El Dorado. At heart, I’m a student of my environment, and that environment is the West itself. Born and raised in Southern California, I was indoctrinated into the state’s history early on, watching Huell Howser on public television and making a model of the Mission San Juan Capistrano in the third grade.
I fondly recall summers not at Disneyland, but spent running around that amusement park that itself was a pastiche of the Old West, Knott’s Berry Farm. There were also the summers of road trips, driving through the Mojave Desert from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
I have roots in this country, maybe deeper than I know. Ghosts and memories. That is the shape of my personal West.
There is more I could say, about Mayan pottery and film noir and studying art history at UCLA and being raised in the Christian faith, about how the West to me is a movement in a direction or a dance like a ballet by Aaron Copland—but those disparate pieces would take far too long to form into a coherent picture.
As you read The Dark Country, which I’ve come to call a short story cycle, but whose narratives are perhaps interconnected enough to be termed a novella, you’ll find something else, too. Something that is not reflected in the story I’ve told above, at least not obviously. Horror.
The title is apt. This book treats dark themes; evil, greed, desperation, the fear of the unknown. Be warned, it doesn’t end on a happy note, or even a certain one. When I thought I was writing a novel, I wanted it to end heroically, maybe even redeem some of the characters, but there is no ultimate end to these stories, which is why I’m calling this “Book 1.”
I’ll write more stories in the future, no doubt, but for now you are a traveler in a dark country, there is no clear map to El Dorado, and the end of the journey is always just out of reach…
Original song generated with Udio. See my Udio page here.
Epigraph
There be demons in the Land of Nod,
Land forsaken by almighty God.
I'm all terror and fright.
I pray in the night:
My God, save my sinning soul,
Keep my spirit whole.
Save me from snake and skull and sand.
May I not sink where I stand.
But no god dwells here,
Only death and fear.
I am forsaken by my God.
Surely I die in the Land of Nod.
Lead me down to Hell,
Where the demons dwell.
Kill me where I stand.
I'll shake a deal with Satan's hand.
The desert has become my god.
I'll be a demon in the Land of Nod.
—S.E. Ybarra, “Land of Nod”
Liked what you read? Read Chapter 1 here, or consider purchasing the full book on Amazon.
See all chapters here.
Amazing book