Ancient Horror History Unearthed: Goat Dance by Douglas Clegg REVIEWED.

Douglas Clegg. Very prolific, pretty highly revered and currently living in my state, according to his Facebook page. Qualifies for to-be-read status for sure.

And so it was. Goat Dance ended up in my queue almost a year ago as the place to start with Clegg. The author's first novel, a tremendously hokey-gorgeous cover, reviews alluding to lots of gruesome gore, and nominated for Stoker in the time of it's release...all solidifying facts as the place to begin checking out Clegg.

Problem was this...last summer, when I originally started reading it, I had just come off quite a few straight-forward breakneck paced books, most of which were to the brim with gore, which at that particular point in time was exactly what I was looking for.

Goat Dance just isn't that. In fact, it's a bit jarring in it's sporadic storytelling at first, takes a bit to get into.

So, it went back to the shelves, and I picked up something else more suited to my taste at the time.

It circled back around recently, with it cover beckoning to me, and being in the mood for something a bit more in-depth than my usual comfort zone.

My experience was quite different this time around. I still didn't love Goat Dance, but for a while, in the thick of the book, I really thought I might. Honestly, I may even, for the first time ever, think that the hyperviolence at the end of the book, seems to be one of the downfalls...

Let me explain.

The book starts all over the place, telling about 10 narratives at once, from all different media sources. You've gotta pay more attention than one should have to, to get into it. But man, once you're into it, you are into it.

About a hundred pages in, I was completely hooked, mesmerized even. There were moments of literary brilliance, stuff you don't really see in books with ridiculous stepbacks revealing a goat-demon-man in a swirling flame lake of suffering somebodies.

Clegg at his best, is a truly fantastic writer. Maybe one of the best I can think of, from an ability to use words in such an artful way...at times...but this brilliance is only hinted at. I really can't wait to check out some of his later work, as I am sure this is a craft he masters later in his career.

For the thick of the novel, I was totally in. Pontefract, Virginia, it's many, many characters and locations became my second home.

And then, in the final act, where all sorts of nasty hell breaks loose, where I usually am applauding, the whole thing kinda just...falls to bits.

From it's disorienting beginning, it settles into a great groove, but then just fizzles with a mile a minute monster and gorefest. I'm typing these words and almost cannot believe what I am saying.

I'm not sure I've ever felt so mixed on a novel. There's a lot going on here and a lot to enjoy. Plenty of shocks, plenty of gore, plenty of surprises...it's just very non-linear for a very long time. The reader becomes used to this, starts to respect and enjoy it. When it just becomes a relatively standard horror tale for its last hundred pages, you just feel a bit let down. Or maybe even like you're reading a different book?

Anyway, I've somehow gotten to the almost end of my review and not mentioned what the hell the thing is about. So, I'll do that.

Goat Dance is a discombobulated novel telling the many stories of a town called Pontefract, with an evil history. It mostly hones in around one main character, Cup Coffey, but weaves about a hundred subplots in and around him. Cup has been called back to the town by a girl he loved, and really never gave up loving. He arrives to an absolute shit-show of supernatural proportions and finds he is quite tied to it all.

My recommendation is give it a try, you might dig it.... and I'm recommending I give Clegg another try too. But for me, this one was just way too all over the place in the end.

That is not to discredit the author's tremendous writing ability. There were moments where I was moved to almost tears by the great writing.

It's just that writing dissolves into a mish-mash of inside-out men and aluminum toothed vagina-women...which in another novel, would be fantastic. It just doesn't really make much sense here.

3/5.