Author Archives: David Peak

I interviewed one of my favorite authors, Gordon B. White, about his book Rookfield and how it was informed by the pandemic for Dead Reckonings. Thank you, Alex Houstoun for picking this one up. I’m thrilled to finally contribute to such a great publication.

I’m thrilled to announce that my latest novel, The World Below, is now available from Apocalypse Party. Check it out here.

My next novel, The World Below, will be published by Apocalypse Party in March 2022. Ben has published some of my favorite books in recent years, so I’m really happy to be working with him. Preorders coming soon.

And here are a few blurbs:

“A brilliant and flayed slice of Midwest gothic. While one might find traces of Poppy Z. Brite or Michael McDowell here, The World Below is wholly its own beast. Peak laces the classic premise of feuding, cursed families with high-potency LSD, forming something fresh, potent, and filled with ache.”
—B.R. Yeager, author of Negative Space
 
“Violent, noir-soaked horror infuses every page of David Peak’s astonishing The World Below, coiling like a serpent around love: first and lost loves, love of family and the land, love of darkness and blood. Peak mixes the most primal of emotions like an alchemist, leaving every reader transformed.”
—Livia Llewellyn, author of Furnace
 
“The World Below is an incredible page turner of a novel. The fascinating, well-rendered characters, all members of two long-feuding families, clash with pyrotechnic, psychedelic, and dynamic results. The World Below puts in mind an unholy but glorious union of William Faulkner’s Light in August and Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. Peak’s prose is wise, mysterious, and philosophically deep, but is always riveting. My highest recommendation. Don’t miss this one!”
—Jon Padgett, author of The Secret of Ventriloquism

I’m thrilled to announce that my story “Zones Without Names” will be published in Looming Low Volume II. Like most people, I was a huge fan of what Justin Steele and Sam Cowan did with Volume I, it’s one of my favorite anthologies from recent years, so I’m incredibly proud to contribute to its follow-up.

I interviewed Brian Evenson about his latest story collection, The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell, for Bookforum. All thanks to David O’Neill for making this happen.

My fiction “The Blinding Light” is up at Misery Tourism. Thank you, Rudy Johnson, for taking this one on.

Today marks the 85th anniversary of the inaugural issue of the Acéphale journal. In celebration, Schism has released a monstrous volume of what Eugene Thacker calls “directions to the forest.” I’m proud to say that one of my older poems, “Hammer and Anvil,” was included among so many great thinkers, writers, and artists.

Check it out here. More info at Schism.

My fiction “The Devil Reversed” is up at Expat Press. All thanks to Maggie Siebert for giving this one such a perfect home.

I’m thrilled to announce that Eyes in the Dust and Other Stories is now available.

Buy direct from Trepidatio

Buy from Amazon

Buy from Barnes & Noble

More info here.

Phantom limbs, porous realities, and strange reflections shifting in black glass. The thirteen stories included in David Peak’s decade-spanning collection explore how memory affects place and place memory, the traumas that haunt bodies like ghosts, and the desperation of needing to be seen and understood by others. Only in pulling back the bloody veil of this world may we be so blessed to see things as they really are—and not as we wish them to be.

With an introduction by Christopher Slatsky.