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The Dark Country

Dennis Etchison

3.69 · Rating details · 461 ratings · 53 reviews

In the same creepy vein as Philip K. Dick and Thomas Harris, Etchinson's award-winning fiction is justly known for its creepy ambiance.

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Paperback, 216 pages

Published March 1st 2002 by Babbage Press (first published January 1982)

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· 461 ratings · 53 reviews

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Jul 24, 2016 Bill Kerwin rated it really liked it

Shelves: weird-fiction, short-stories

After reading a handful of The Dark Country stories, I began to think of the paintings of Edward Hopper. At first my reaction was a puzzle. I wonderer why.

After all, Etchison writes vividly of Southern California in the late 70’s and early ‘80’s, of LA airports, highways and rest stops, of laundromats and convenience stores. Hopper, on the other hand, paints the East Coast in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s, depicting New York railway compartments, gas stations and chop suey joints, movie palaces, furnishe
After reading a handful of The Dark Country stories, I began to think of the paintings of Edward Hopper. At first my reaction was a puzzle. I wonderer why.

After all, Etchison writes vividly of Southern California in the late 70’s and early ‘80’s, of LA airports, highways and rest stops, of laundromats and convenience stores. Hopper, on the other hand, paints the East Coast in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s, depicting New York railway compartments, gas stations and chop suey joints, movie palaces, furnished rooms, and owl-wagons. But if Hopper is noir, then Etchison is neo-noir: in each, a severe scene and its human figures are circumscribed by a small patch of merciless light, a light which whispers of isolation and the lonely darkness beyond. Hopper’s light is incandescent, Etchison’s fluorescent, but both lights cut right through to the bone.

I think my favorite group of tales is the strongly noir-ish: “It Only Comes Out at Night” (set in a desert rest stop with lots of cars and no people), “Sitting in the Corner, Whimpering Quietly” (a bizarre laundromat confession), “The Walking Man” (Double Indemnity/Body Heat, with a twist), “We Have All Been Here Before” (a police psychic with an agenda), “The Pitch” (a “Mr. Popiel” type pitchman with an agenda), “The Late Shift” (something is very, very wrong with those creepy late-night quickie mart clerks), and “The Dark Country” (a random homicide disrupts an American resort in Mexico). Still, the more mysterious, open-ended stories may be even better: “The Nighthawk” (a were-hawk and his human sister), “It Will Be Here Soon” (an old man listens to strange voices on used cassette tapes), “Death Tracks” (a couple finds that TV laugh-tracks are a way of communicating with the dead, and—perhaps best of all—the haunting “You Can Go Now” (a cross-country airplane odyssey by a man who may—or may not—have committed a terrible crime).

I wasn’t a big fan of all these stories. A few (“The Daughter of the Golden West,” “Today’s Special”) were more gimmicky than ghastly, a few of the open-ended stories were more confusing than mysterious, and I didn’t much like “Transplant Trilogy,” even though Ramsay Campbell—who wrote the introduction is a better judge than I am—disagrees.

These criticisms, however, are minor. The Dark Country is a book of well-crafted stories, touched with a beguiling ambiguity and capable of evoking genuine terror. I urge you to give Etchison a try. ...more

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Jan 15, 2015 Jack Tripper rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: story-collection, weird, horror

Dennis Etchison had three excellent collections released in the 1980s, but this, his first, is the most consistently unnerving from beginning to end. His unique brand of horror is quiet, yet can shift to disturbingly visceral and violent all of a sudden. This isn't Charles L. Grant we're talking about here. Etchison knows how to suggest, but he is also not afraid to go for the throat.

Deserted highways and rest stops in the middle of nowhere, 7-11's and diners in the dead of night -- these are th Dennis Etchison had three excellent collections released in the 1980s, but this, his first, is the most consistently unnerving from beginning to end. His unique brand of horror is quiet, yet can shift to disturbingly visceral and violent all of a sudden. This isn't Charles L. Grant we're talking about here. Etchison knows how to suggest, but he is also not afraid to go for the throat.

Deserted highways and rest stops in the middle of nowhere, 7-11's and diners in the dead of night -- these are the haunts of Etchison's characters. Some of the stories here have a slight science-fictional element to them, and I'm sure that if these stories had been published during a sf-boom era as opposed to the horror boom, they would have been marketed as such (and indeed a few did originally appear in sf magazines). But there's also the ever-present feeling of wrongness, even when nothing particularly horrific or supernatural is yet occurring. That slow-creeping sense of dread and foreboding is always there.

Take for instance the chilling opener, "We Only Come Out At Night," which takes place entirely either in a car or a rest-stop late at night, with nothing really to indicate what lies ahead for much of it, other than the fact that no one else is around. As with most of his stories, there's an uneasy atmosphere overlaying everything, and the reader knows that what's coming can't be good, but they're helpless to stop reading. Etchison is a master of slowly and subtly building suspense, so that before you know it you're nervous with anticipation, even if you can't pinpoint why, exactly.

His science fictional tendencies come into play in the so-called "Transplant Trilogy," which consists of "Calling All Monsters," "The Dead Line," and the oft-reprinted "The Late Shift," which made it's first appearance in Kirby McCauley's legendary 1980 anthology, Dark Forces. These tales, set in the not-too-distant future, show that death isn't always the end, and that it can always get worse. Far, far worse. Remind me to never check "yes" on the donor card the next time I'm renewing my driver's license.

These are all short little bursts of psychological terror, and Etchison is able to pack a lot into these 10-15 page stories. At times his writing can be slightly opaque or confusing, but not to the extent of someone like Aickman or Ligotti. In fact, I'd say that even the casual horror fan who only reads King or Koontz should have no trouble getting into these well-crafted tales.

But for the hardcore horror fan, this collection is as essential as just about any that came out of the 1980s, imo.

5 Stars ...more

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Dec 07, 2018 Peter rated it really liked it

Shelves: horror

What a read! The author really manages to draw you into his world of a dark country with all kinds of strange settings. Do you want to see the Walking Man? What about the Daughter of the Golden West? When you cross The Dead Line, take The Late Shift and watch The Nighthawk you will soon reach The Dark Country. I really liked those masterly told psychological stories. Reading this book is like being on a trip but one you never were on before. Recommended!

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Aug 07, 2011 Marvin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: autographed, horror

Etchison should be better known. He wrote some of the most harrowing horror tales of the 70s and 80s and I hear he is still going strong. He is sort of the god-father to splatter-punk and even if his story are sometimes psychologically introverted, he excels at the brutal ending. There is rarely any supernatural themes in his fiction but he is one of the best at psychological horror. His stories can be as straight forward as a sledgehammer yet still maintain the subtlety of a traitor's kiss.

The ...more

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Aug 19, 2011 Sandy rated it really liked it

"The Dark Country" was Dennis Etchison's first collection of short stories, and originally appeared back in 1982. This reader picked up an out-of-print copy recently, after seeing that it had been included in Jones and Newman's excellent overview volume, "Horror: 100 Best Books." Well, I don't know if I would place it on MY personal top 100 list, but this book certainly is a unique collection of shuddery, gruesome little tales. Readers looking for horror stories depicting monsters, ghosts, demon "The Dark Country" was Dennis Etchison's first collection of short stories, and originally appeared back in 1982. This reader picked up an out-of-print copy recently, after seeing that it had been included in Jones and Newman's excellent overview volume, "Horror: 100 Best Books." Well, I don't know if I would place it on MY personal top 100 list, but this book certainly is a unique collection of shuddery, gruesome little tales. Readers looking for horror stories depicting monsters, ghosts, demons and other manifestations of the supernatural would be best advised to look elsewhere; the only monsters in this volume are of the human kind, and the only demons are those found in the minds of the assorted oddball characters. These are all very much (post)modernistic stories, and there are no crumbling castles or Carpathian villages to be found. Some of the tales even take place in the not-too-distant future, and have a decidedly sci-fi overtone. Without exception, every story herein is a distinct little gem, but like gems, some of them are flawed.

For me, these flaws take the form of either too much or not enough information. In some of these tales, such as "You Can Go Now," Etchison gives us loads of detail, and at the story's end, it all seemingly doesn't add up to very much. In others, such as "Today's Special," one feels that not enough has been supplied to fully "get" the story. Etchison is a very stylish writer--sometimes almost too stylish--and that flashy style often comes at the expense of clarity. Often, these stories must be reread in order to pick up on hints missed on the first go-round. Or perhaps one will feel compelled to reread lines, just to revel in the frequent beauty of the writing. Etchison certainly does have a handy way with a simile; for instance, when he writes "...the sky...was turning a soft, tropical orange of the kind one expects to see only on foreign postage stamps." Or when he writes "The river smelled like dead stars." Yes, the ol' boy certainly does know how to write descriptive and imaginative prose, and in MOST of the cases here, that prose is in the service of tales that do hit the reader squarely.

One of my favorite tales in the collection is one of the most straightforward: "Daughter of the Golden West." It concerns a bunch of gals who are decidedly, um, man hungry. There is a loosely linked trilogy of tales concerning organ transplants (these are the tales that tend to sci-fi) that are also very well done. Other tales in the book will make readers never look at butcher shops, or salesmen, or clairvoyants, or oral sex, or laugh tracks, or late-night convenience store clerks in quite the same way ever again. For every head scratcher of a story in the book, there are two killers. So yes, the book is a mixed bag of sorts, but even the problematic tales hold one's interest and invite reexamination. After finishing these 16 morbid little stories, I was sorry to see the book end. Etchison's is certainly a unique voice in the horror field, and if other readers have a similar reaction to mine, they will feel compelled to read more of him. This is, as I mentioned up top, an unusual collection, and I do recommend it.

...more

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Apr 23, 2018 James Adams rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: collections, vintage-horror

Most readers, no matter how widely we read, have our specialties. For me, that would be horror short story collections, specifically from the boom era (1974-1990, give or take). Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of modern collections, and novels from that vintage take up some serious space on my shelves, but Ford-to-Reagan era shorts and novellas are my jam.
One of the major genre movements of the time was quiet horror, of the kind practiced and celebrated by Charles L. Grant. Another practitioner ...more

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Jul 10, 2018 Spencer rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is the first book by Dennis Etchison that I've read and I was really impressed, I liked all the stories and found Dennis to be a terrific and inventive writer. This collection felt like the perfect place to start as someone new to Dennis's work and I'll definitely be picking up more of his books in the future.

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Jun 27, 2015 Justin rated it really liked it

Shelves: short-stories, horror

Etchison’s writing has intrigued me whenever I’ve the odd Etchison story from various anthologies I’ve stumbled upon. Considered psychological, quiet, subtle, and introverted, Etchison writes his own unique brand of horror. His debut short story collection features sixteen stories.

“It Only Comes Out at Night”
A husband and wife travel at night to a roadside rest stop in the middle of a desert. I loved the creepy atmosphere, and the buildup to the chilling climax. 4/5

“Sitting in the Corner, Whimpe ...more

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Nov 09, 2013 Mark Fuller Dillon rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

At last, we have an e-book edition of one of the major American horror collections, and the stories are as troubling and as powerful as they were when I bought my copy from Scream/Press in 1982.

Long before then, Dennis Etchison had been writing and making a name for himself. In the 1960s and '70s, his work had appeared in everything from the MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION and WHISPERS to NEW WRITINGS IN SF, and he was a regular in THE YEAR'S BEST HORROR STORIES from DAW. We all knew that ...more

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Nov 02, 2017 Ben Loory rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Favorites (great titles, too):

"It Only Comes Out at Night"
"We Have All Been Here Before"
"You Can Go Now"
"The Dark Country"

and especially

"It Will Be Here Soon"

which is kinda like if Raymond Carver wrote a ghost story.

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Apr 09, 2015 Andy rated it liked it

This collection was a weird experience, I either loved or hated the stories, with little in-between. These stories can be simultaneously brilliantly and frustratingly disorientating. In a few cases Etchison has very round-about ways of telling what I thought were rather run-of-the-mill stories when you get down to it. In the final equation though, there's more good than bad here.

There's some very good stories here. "It Only Comes Out At Night" and "Daughter Of The Golden West" are both full-fled ...more

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Feb 11, 2019 Gordon rated it liked it

Shelves: audible, horror

My favorites were It Only Comes Out at Night, The Pitch, and Today's Special. It Only Comes Out at Night had a sense of Twilight Zone about it. The Pitch and Today's Special were very similar in topic, but both really good in letting the reader fill in the awful details of the plot.

After It Only Comes Out at Night, several of the stories were very reminiscent of hard-boiled detective stories or film noir (Sitting in the Corner, Whimpering Quietly, The Walking Man, We Have All Been Here Before, ...more

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Jul 14, 2019 Kevin Jones rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Feelings of loneliness, alienation, and despair abound in this short story collection. This is indeed a vision of a dark country, both literal and figurative as many of the dark deeds and doings transpire at night. Death and musings on the meaning of life abound in these stories (right down to a trilogy of stories with organ harvesting as the central theme). The best moments, however, come from the liminal aspect of many of the stories where the reader can only grasp at the significance and mean ...more

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May 30, 2019 Dustin marked it as to-read

Shelves: classics, short-stories, s-king-recommends, want-to-own

"I didn't find any of the stories particularly horrifying, but they were interesting and well-written."

-Stephen King

https://www.dreadcentral.com/news/295... ...more

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Sep 30, 2019 Dan rated it liked it · review of another edition

2.84 combined which rounds to a 3 star rating. This is an older set of short stories from a different era. Some were great and some I really just didn't like.

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Dec 08, 2009 joey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: horror

Most of these stories were published in the late seventies, very early eighties, when there was still a burgeoning fiction market in "men's magazines." (Instead of listing the actual magazine titles in which the stories first appeared, the book cites the names of the publishing houses ("Dungent Publishing Corporation," etc., which published Gallery Magazine, Gent--porn, basically.) I'm lucky enough to own a first edition, which features J.K. Potter's genuinely creepy photo art; these are photogr Most of these stories were published in the late seventies, very early eighties, when there was still a burgeoning fiction market in "men's magazines." (Instead of listing the actual magazine titles in which the stories first appeared, the book cites the names of the publishing houses ("Dungent Publishing Corporation," etc., which published Gallery Magazine, Gent--porn, basically.) I'm lucky enough to own a first edition, which features J.K. Potter's genuinely creepy photo art; these are photographic illustrations created in a pre-Photoshop world, in situ in the dark room. Pretty amazing when you think about it.

But, about the fiction: Etchison is a writer whose output is not as "prodigious" as his best-selling colleagues, but his stories are of extraordinary craftsmanship and depth. Intensely psychological, they all elliptically orbit the horror of dehumanization--disassociation, alienation, and an inability to find meaning in man-made nightmares. The introduction is by Ramsey Campbell, the dedication, to Ray Bradbury, who, like Etchison, is a Californian (yes, I know Bradbury was born in Wisconsin).

The title story, according to Etchison himself, was pared down from a novel-length manuscript, and it is gripping. There are one or two weak stories in the bunch, but, over all, each story, in some way, showcases a voice and vision that is unique to no one but Etchison. (By the way, the main character, Jack Martin, of "The Dark Country" reappears in his Shadowman, an equally superb work of psychological horror.)

I apologize for the rambling, fawning comment, but I love this man's work and think he's seriously underrated. "The Dark Country" is my favorite story out of the lot, but I was particularly moved by "It Will Be Here Soon," a story with real pathos. Which brings me to my next point. These are more than just "horror stories." The world is becoming increasingly dehumanizing, and this is what Etchison is really writing about, and what makes a lot of these stories so special (to me). I highly recommend "The Dark Country"; but, if you've read thus far, you've already guessed as much.

...more

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Jul 28, 2008 Charles rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

Etchison is one of our finest short story writers. This is a very strong collection of his work. Etchison often was able to open his stories with dynamite lines that dragged you intensely into the story.

The title, The Dark Country," comes from Etchison's respect for Bradbury, but Etchison's horror stories are much more brutal and graphic.

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Nov 26, 2014 Trent Zelazny rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Simply put, collected here are some of the very best horror short stories ever written. Etchison is a master, and sadly underappreciated. His imagination is amazing, his style beautiful. If you want to study the craft of writing excellent horror short stories, this one should definitely be on your reading list.

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Jun 02, 2009 Melissa rated it it was ok

These stories are just so close, just so tantalizingly close to being truly horrifying but in each one, there's something missing, something that makes it not-scary. I haven't finished all of them yet & I'm not sure I will. His writing style is kind of irritating & the payoff is just not worth it. ...more

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Jan 04, 2020 Richard Leis rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

5 stars for the craft alone.

And the content? I was expecting supernatural and creature horror, so I had to set aside my expectations right away. There is some of that, but most of these short stories delve into real-life horror more than fantasy. I guess many of these short stories might be considered noir, but I feel like noir is where these stories begin, but they end up full-on horror by their ambiguous or shocking or terrifyingly punctuated endings. Those punctuated endings are fascinating t 5 stars for the craft alone.

And the content? I was expecting supernatural and creature horror, so I had to set aside my expectations right away. There is some of that, but most of these short stories delve into real-life horror more than fantasy. I guess many of these short stories might be considered noir, but I feel like noir is where these stories begin, but they end up full-on horror by their ambiguous or shocking or terrifyingly punctuated endings. Those punctuated endings are fascinating to me, because they made me feel like the story had ended too soon, but right at the height of the horror, which is a shocking but especially resonate place for the reader to be left by the writer. That's also great craft.

I love lists in a story, so I really enjoyed the fitting parataxis Dennis Etchison included in many of these stories. For example, when describing bugs on a windshield: "essence of honeybee, wasp, dragonfly, mayfly, June bug, lady bug and the like." This is all part of Etchison's constant attention to detail in these stories, and exactly the right details. His stories are dripping with mood and specific details, even when I don't quite understand what is going on (there are a few stories that were a little opaque to me.) I also paid attention to the metaphors and similes, because they always seemed perfect for that very moment in the story: "The river smelled like dead stars."

I loved every story (even those I didn't quite get.) The first two stories—"It Only Comes Out at Night" and "Sitting in the Corner, Whimpering Quietly"—taught me how to read Etchison's work and prepared me in some ways for what was to come later in the collection. These stories had great, I-need-to-set-this-book-down-right-now-to-freak-out endings. I didn't quite get "The Walking Man" and "We Have All Been Here Before," but, wow, did those stories get under my skin. There's a strange trilogy of organ donor stories with science fiction elements that work really well together but left me curious if Etchison had something against organ donations. "The Nighthawk" with its child protagonist and weirdly astute persona narrator is almost fairy-tale-esque. And the final story, "The Dark Country," comments in uncomfortably apt ways about privilege and racism that feel absolutely timely.

I only heard of Etchison and his work recently, in the context of how overlooked this master of short stories and horror was throughout his career. I'm glad to be a fan now and sorry that it happened only after his recent death. I look forward to reading all of his work, including rereading this collection someday soon. ...more

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Aug 15, 2019 Alex rated it liked it

This collection feels very Punk in its attitude and in-your-face aggression. “The Machine Demands a Sacrifice” is a nasty little story that is a precursor to the milieu of Fight Club. “Calling All Monsters” is a citing condemnation of our corporate health system. “The Late Shift” resonated nicely with Kelly Link’s “The Hortlak” – while Link’s is more a nihilistic and cosmic uncaring view of retail, Etchison’s focuses on the exploitation and the active boot of the corporate retail establishment o ...more

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May 12, 2020 Jim Smith rated it really liked it

Creepy little ambient, often minimalist macabre stories of the sort Ray Bradbury and Shirley Jackson would write.

Contains three stories in a row about organ transplants, oddly.

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Jun 05, 2014 Shirley Moore rated it it was amazing

Take a walk on the dark side…An unbelievably pithy and traumatic collection of dark, stark tales, The Dark Country travels on byways the reader might not otherwise ever want to explore – into the deepest recesses of the most obscure corners of the human psyche and experience. This being the second Etchison book in which I have indulged, I thought I knew somewhat what to expect, but he caught me shockingly off-guard again and again. This man’s work is a revelation; every word, every sentence, eve ...more

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Aug 03, 2014 Robin rated it liked it

Those stories are creepy in atmosphere and extremely well drafted in every other way as well. However, they often seem to be one point short of a plot. So, you'll be bopping along, creeped out as hell, and then all of a sudden the story just ends, and you don't know for sure why. I had to do too much speculation to finish the story. That's really the author's job.

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Sep 12, 2014 Rena Mason rated it really liked it

The DARK COUNTRY is a great collection of stories that range from the eerily subtle to the memorably disturbing without little-to-no intense gore or excessive violence. The most haunting story for me was the first one, "It Only Comes Out at Night", because I think it sets the tone for the rest of the collection. If you prefer creepy tales of unease, this is collection is a perfect choice.

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Nov 13, 2011 Debra rated it liked it

Shelves: sai-king-recommends, horror-supernatural

Stephen King recommended book and author per "Forenote to the Paperback Edition" of King's Berkley 1983 paperback edition of Danse Macabre.

I didn't find any of the stories particularly horrifying, but they were interesting and well-written.

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May 05, 2012 Marcus rated it liked it

Shelves: horror

A fairly inconsistent set of stories as far as I'm concerned...some were pretty good but it got a little repetitive in the middle and so so at the end. Not the best collection of short horror I've read.

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Jun 14, 2008 Derek rated it it was amazing

Rereading Etchison’s seminal collection, and while some of it is dated, the best resonate even more today.

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Dec 19, 2017 Jessica Robinson rated it it was ok · review of another edition

The first story was extremely disturbing and good but most of the others didn't grab me. Plus a bizarre number of them dealt with the "evils" of organ donation and since I don't think giving a body to science is disrespectful, the repetition of this particular fear failed to chill me to my bones. Any of which my loved ones can give away after I die because I won't give a fuck because of the whole being dead thing.

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Jul 24, 2017 Albert rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, ha-tbr-shelf-challenge-2017

This is the second anthology that I've read by this author, and unfortunately I found both of them to be rather boring, with not a single memorable story.

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About Dennis Etchison

Dennis Etchison

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aka Jack Martin.

Dennis William Etchison was an American writer and editor of fantasy and horror fiction. He is a multi-award winner, having won the British Fantasy Award three times for fiction, and the World Fantasy Award for anthologies he edited. ...more