The Black Project by Gareth Brookes

Getting yourself a girlfriend is easy, according to Richard. All you need is papier mache, string, soft material, a balloon, some old fashioned  bellows, and a good pair of scissors. The difficult bit is keeping her secret.

Set in an English suburb in the early 1990s, The Black Project is the story of Richard’s all-consuming passion for creating ‘girls’ from household objects. But as his hobby begins to flourish, his real life friendships and family relationships deteriorate. Richard is an unreliable narrator, and the reader responds to his loneliness and his dogged attempt to find a companion, while being horrified by his warped creations. The novel’s focus is on the divide between childhood and adulthood; where sex, perversion, and the grotesque feature in their many forms.

"The Black Project is full of that creeping horror feeling, you know the sort... dark memories of childhood, creatures under the bed, the terrifying walk home in the dark, the sweat-drenching dream that leaves you unsettled and on edge all day, that sort of thing. Brookes plays on that feeling, adding dark humour and deadpan first person voiceover to create something really unsettling, genuinely creepy. Horrific at times, ridiculous at others,The Black Project is a fascinatingly creepy experience." - Richard Bruton, Forbidden Planet

Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Myriad Editions (12 Sep. 2013)
Language: English
ISBN: 978-1-908434-20-3
Size: 160mm x 230mm