Let Gravity Seize the Dead

Overview

In 2007, Beck Randall moves with his wife and teenage daughters into a long-abandoned cabin deep in the woods, built a century before by his grandparents. Once there, daughters Tina and Lucy discover that their predecessors have left an imprint of suffering and violence the girls refer to as “The Whistler,” an eerie presence infused in the nature that surrounds them. As the 1907 and 2007 storylines braid together, characters and events intrude upon each other, blurring the boundaries between eras and illustrating that people and lives are not forgotten; instead, they are woven into the fabric of the land itself. With gritty, lyrical storytelling, Let Gravity Seize the Dead is an intergenerational literary horror story featuring a blend of suspense, beauty, and terror.

Reviews

“Darrin Doyle’s brilliant Let Gravity Seize the Dead is both wizardry and wildfire. Doyle’s rich and evocative words conjure other worlds, beyond this one, beyond life and death... Like the best of Poe, like Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, like Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, this book lures us in, alters our perception, and leaves us haunted.”
—Kelcey Ervick, author of The Keeper

“It’s one of the spookiest, most headlong books I’ve ever read. It might remind you, as it did me, of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived at the Castle and also of Stephen King’s The Shining. But really, it’s all Darrin Doyle, who for years has been writing marvelous books about our best intentions and our worst impulses. This is his best yet. Fair warning, though: once you start reading, you won’t be able to stop.”
—Brock Clarke, author of Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe?

“With Let Gravity Seize the Dead, Darrin Doyle has fashioned a story of compelling Faulknerian intensity, the evil in it emerging not just from the sins of the past but a Michigan landscape with as much malevolent presence as Annie Proulx’s Wyoming.”
—Naeem Murr, author of The Perfect Man

“‘Violence and trauma may run deep as the forest roots through the Randall family property, but so does Doyle’s gift of language, which haunts these lean pages with lines like ‘window tarps flap like flightless birds in the night wind,’ to deliver a moody, pitch dark novella that will linger in my nightmares for quite some time.”
—Sara Lippman, author of Lech

"With lyrical and haunting prose, Doyle conveys how a landscape can absorb and even embody malevolence, laying traps for the unsuspecting or curious. He has crafted a novella as spellbinding as it’s terrifying…”
—Small Press Picks Review

"…you’ll be rewarded with beauty and nightmares…[Doyle] has style in droves, and it’s as unique as it is mesmerizing." 
—Morbidly Beautiful Review

“Rather than ostentatious, gut-churning gore, it relies on poetic writing to create a psychological, even spiritual and existential, minefield. The past mysteriously and hauntingly blends with the present so that the events, much like bloodlines, DNA, and family lore, become inseparable.”
—Heavy Feather Review

Author Biography

Darrin Doyle is the author of six other books of fiction, including the novels The Beast in Aisle 34 and The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo. His short stories have appeared in many literary journals. He has worked as a paperboy, janitor, mover, telemarketer, copy consultant, pizza driver, and prep cook, among other jobs. He teaches at Central Michigan University and lives in Mount Pleasant, Michigan.