Atlas Broken

This was a book that I just had to get out of me. It’s a very personal one, and I make no apologies for the graphical depiction of Henry’s disintegration or the world in which he lives. Depression is a very real thing. It is a beast that consumes without remorse, and attempts to convey its effects to another can be frustrated by a vocabulary, ignorance and awkwardness. In short, sometimes it’s a hell of a lot easier to show someone than to tell them.

And that’s where Atlas, Broken is coming from.

I hadn’t read any Kafka when I wrote this and it was only after, when I read his book “The Metamorphosis” that I realised that Kafkaesque was a thing.

It’s not a perfect allegory, nor a stab at my life in particular, nor anyone around me. Instead I want to let you know what it feels like to be Henry. I’m hoping that there’s another Henry out there who picks this book up and gets it.

It is set in Melbourne, written in the Australian dialect. The narrative is quick, the dialogue is what you might find in any suburb of your choice. The thing is, I don’t believe for a second that Henry lives only in Victoria. I reckon he’s everywhere.

This book does not hold a dedication, but, unofficially, I’d like to dedicate it to Henry Ludlow.

The cover art for Atlas, Broken is a doodle. The coffee stain was actually really difficult to get right. I had to practice on some other pages to get it right (you wouldn’t think it would be so hard) before I committed to the main page. Those are my Gunnar glasses, which I can highly recommend, that I use when sitting in front of the monitor, and there’s also a squeezy hand exercise thing at the top. Getting the pose for the Henry-Atlas figure took a bit of doing on scrap paper, mostly because carrying a big, whopping celestial sphere is not the most natural of positions.

Published: June 22, 2014
Words: 17,550
Language: Australian English
ISBN: 9781311827814

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4 comments

  1. […] Running under a kind of crop-rotation theory, I figured that too much working the Paranormology angle will exhaust and weaken it. I’ve only just finished up with Sci-Fi, hence that needs a rest. So I’m going for the ‘Weird Fiction’ angle, in a similar vein to The Bullet and Atlas, Broken. […]

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