A Cool, Dark Place

Book excerpt: ‘The more I write, the more I revisit memory like this, putting pen to paper, ink to blood, the more the dots seem to connect, and the silences speak.’ Following her faux father’s suicide, Zephyr’s life unravels into a shapeless tapestry woven in the ethanol-hand of her grandfather, Don—an amoral, sensual, manipulative bastard who’s too clever for heaven and too deranged for hell. An alcoholic extraordinaire for whom the clock always struck quarter-past rum; for whom it was always just about the libidinous moment; a man with imperial swagger and disco-ball eyes; the super king of a vast empire of solitude, and permanent resident of his daughter’s wounded heart, Don’s actions shatter Zef’s past into fragments of warring memories. Armed with only her blade of tears, she carves her way through a quagmire of dark, atavistic forces. A mother–daughter bond formed in the afterlife, memories stored in Ziploc bags, and the horrific struggle to piece together a past that’s been through the shredder—A Cool, Dark Place is all of these plus the unsettling realization that one’s life was ghost-written by two drunks.