Jack's Typewriter

 10. The Circus of Dr Lao By Charles G. Finney  09.  At The Mountains of Madness By H.P. Lovecraft  08. Dracula By Bram Stoker 07. Frankenstein By Mary Shelley  06. Nine-Teen-Eighty-four By George Orwell 05. Dream Story (Traumnovelle) By Arthur Schnitzler  04. Wuthering Heights By Emily Bronte  03. High Rise By J.G. Ballard 02. Slaughterhouse 5 By Kurt Vonnegut  01. Crash By J.G. Ballard

The Dark Chorus  (2019) was four years in the making for Cambridge-based author Ashley Meggitt and its publication is a testament to hard work and commitment. Here is a quick look at this emerging indie writer's debut.  Now, I don't  usually   like an opening line with a semi-colon in it. For me, it's far too early for them -- I'm not quite ready for the level of complexity that they introduce. I want something crisp and concise. So, I was already wary when I read Meggitt's first sentence: "I was born right here in this asylum -- literally into bedlam; delivered into a stark white-tiled cell, in what I've come to think of as The Screaming Room" (2019, p.3). I can't say that the promise of any room described as a "Screaming" one wouldn't keep me engaged, but I was looking forward to the "clear-eyed" writing that was I promised on the book's cover.  Unfortunately, his prose remains stodgy throughout the novel. Meggitt cl