07/23/2025 Exploring the Labyrinth by Kit Power: Dark Hollow, essay 6
- Candace Nola
- Jul 23
- 7 min read
Exploring The Labyrinth
In this series, I will be reading every Brian Keene book that has been published (and is still available in print),and then producing an essay on it. With the exception of The Girl On The Glider, these essays will be based upon a first read of the books concerned. The article will assume you’ve read the book, and you should expect MASSIVE spoilers.
I hope you enjoy my voyage of discovery.
Dark Hollow
There’s a saying I hear Keene use a fair bit on his podcast. I’m not sure I can attribute it to him - I’m pretty sure he got it from someone else, and he may even have named that someone, but if so, it’s slipped my mind - but the more I hear it, the more it seems to apply specifically to the splatterpunk school, of whom Keene is arguably a Mount Rushmore figure. It’s not a million miles away from Stephen King’s great advice for writing horror, which is ‘write what scares you’, but it’s more direct, and following it is apt to take you closer to the nerve and bone, maybe, than even King’s great and sage suggestion.
That phrase/advice/description/commandment is, bleed on the page.
And I trust you can see immediately what I mean. It is absolutely complementary with King’s for-the-ages injunction, but at the same time, it goes further, and is more specific. More personal. Thinking back to reading The Girl On The Glider, the first piece by Keene I ever read and the one that started me on this journey, it’s fair to say it’s an injunction Keene has taken to heart. Throughout the stories so far, one common thread has been Keene pouring out his raw, authentic pain - at his separation as a father from his son, at the nightmare prospect of being blue collar and sick, unable to provide for your family, at the indignities of old age - into his work. It feels like a very splatterpunk thing, this bleeding, and while I’m mostly unfamiliar with the work of Jack Ketchum (arguably the godfather of splatterpunk) it seems to tie in neatly with writing advice I’ve seen attributed to him; don’t waste my time, and don’t look away.
Which brings us to Dark Hollow.
See, on the surface Dark Hollow is a pulp horror novella about a Satyr, who returns to life after a hibernation as a stone statue in the local haunted woods, at which point shenanigans ensue. And the book doesn’t shortchange this idea at all. Our lead character, Adam Senft, (a writer who scored big with his first novel, but quit the day job before really understanding the small print of his contract, and as a result has had to write two novels in the same four month period, just to keep his head above water financially, which obviously could never happen in real life) is out walking his dog in the woods when he sees a female neighbour fellating a stone statue - a statue which then comes to life.
So there are a few things to talk about there, I guess. We’ll start with the sex. This is, by far, Keene’s most sexually explicit book to date. The Satyr is, as legend suggests, a creature of lust, and the creature's power over women is mesmeric and total. Similarly, his presence, or even the sound of his pipes, will also produce spontaneous erections for any man nearby (including, hilariously, Big Steve, Adam’s dog). So there’s a fair amount of sexual content in the book, and while I think it avoids outright purience, not least due to the often queasy responses of the witnesses, it’s certainly graphic.
The Satyr is kind of a fascinating creature, in this regard. There's ways in which he represents a kind of ultimate male adolescent fantasy - all women are not merely compliant but enthusiastically in lust-at-first-sight with him, but equally, he’s an expression of male anxiety - that of not being a good enough lover, true enough partner - a nightmare, ultimate representation of a fear of sexual inadequacy; or at least the fear of being passed over for ‘something better’ by a trusted partner - an embodiment of the notion that lust will always win out over love. Dark Hollow is neither shy or subtle in exploring these themes, and Adam’s uncomfortable, conflicted arousal in that scene with his neighbour pays off deliciously once he realises later in the book that his own wife is missing.
Adam’s not alone in his quest, or in his pain. For starters, there’s the aforementioned Big Steve. Now, I’m a dog owner, and its lethally easy to anthropomorphise one's beloved mutt - indeed, if you don’t find yourself doing this, I’d question the wisdom of owning a dog at all - but bloody hell, Adam really overdoes it. No matter the situation or circumstance, Big Steve is there with a wry comment in the form of a facial expression, body language or bark. I’ll admit that I was beginning to find it borderline irritating at first, until I figured out what was actually going on (which we’ll get to), but I did gain an affection for Big Steve over the course of the book (though not to the level of Adam’s obsessive devotion).
There’s also the neighbours - a small, tight-knit group of men who frequently meet up together out on Adam’s lawn for beers and gossip. The characters are, as is typical for Keene, brilliantly drawn, each with their own foibles, qualities and disposition, and the conversations between them really ring true - the kind of easy, open dialogue you have with people you’ve known for years. It’s also a good picture of the very-small-town reality of no secrets, everyone in each other’s business. I found this especially funny because for Adam (and I suspect Keene also) it’s clearly considered a positive thing, and Adam is both affectionate about and protective of it, but as someone who grew up in that kind of environment and basically hated it, I found myself feeling echoes of that old claustrophobia I so struggled with - which I guess is a testament to the honesty and clarity of the writing, in the way it puts you there.
And then there’s Adam’s relationship with his wife, and the blood on the page.
See, Dark Hollow is also a portrait of a relationship struggling to sustain and reconfigure following a terrible loss. Adam’s wife, Tara - who, lest we forget, has kept her day job even after Adam’s first book was a hit, in order to preserve their medical insurance - has miscarried not once, but twice, and following the last one, a year ago, the couple have not had a sex life.
In the hands of a lesser writer, especially given the wider themes of the book and the Satyr, this could have been a disaster in any number of ways. The subject matter is a minefield, both in terms of negotiating things honestly, and in terms of - bluntly - not being a gigantic asshole. The second miscarriage is especially brutal, with the foetal remains being delivered in the house, and it’s pitilessly graphic and emotionally devastating. I think it’s by far the darkest moment of Keene's I have read so far, and if it holds onto that crown through the rest of this experiment, I will be unsurprised - and honestly, a little relieved, too. Keene did not waste your time, and he did not look away, and neither could I.
The bleakness of this sequence, coming as it does in the second chapter, casts a long shadow over the rest of the book, flattening out some moments that might otherwise have smacked of black comedy, and giving the seduction/mesmerisation of Tara by the Satyr a raw, jagged quality that’s painful to read.
That shadow also not merely forgives but actually makes sense of the overidentification of Big Steve by Adam, and the amount of projection Adam puts onto the dog. Tara bought the dog home several months after the second miscarriage. In that, the dog represents the moment their relationship started to heal, albeit with the kind of scar tissue that such an emotional wound will leave. More, he’s a surrogate child, Tara’s attempt to provide what she can’t - and Adam’s heart and soul adoption of Steve is both a way for him to express those feelings of fatherhood he’d had built and then snatched away, and also show his wife that he understands her gift, that he loves her and whatever family they can build together.
We’re a hell of a long way from the square-jawed heroes and buxom heroines of pulp tradition, here - this is real pain, real people bleeding and hurting and learning to cope, crawling painfully towards some kind of healing, or at least acceptance. And if that rawness at times feels to overshadow, if not overpower entirely, the wider narrative, it also suffuses the whole enterprise with a beating heart of human empathy that is powerful and moving.
Not that the main story isn’t great fun. While it takes the gang a little longer than I’d have liked to start putting things together, once they do, the mystery of LeHorns Hollow and the statue come to life plays out well, with an extended creepy house sequence that’s topped off by a chapter of notes from a 1980’s diary that I found delightful, in the classic Lovecraftian tradition of exposition. Similarly, the metaphysics of ‘powow’, a kind of folk redneck/hillbilly version of New Orleans Voodoo, is incredibly pleasing - I have no idea if it’s a real thing or a whole cloth invention of Keene’s, but either way, it’s got a brilliant feel of authenticity, and I loved how the characters each found their own ways to make it work for them as they built to the final confrontation.
And that showdown is vintage Keene - another brilliantly executed horror action sequence, cinematic, flowing, hugely energetic and fast paced but crystal clear, and yes, okay, I’m trying not to get annoyed at how good he is at this, but there it is. It's as good as any we’ve seen so far, and a fittingly dramatic finale for the novella.
Still, overall, my abiding memory of Dark Hollow is the pain and darkness of that second chapter. It’s the kind of thing that should really come with a warning - not that anything could really prepare you for it. Astonishing. Brave. Brutal.
Blood on the page.
Next up: White Fire.
KP
16/8/18
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