Crispin's Model

by Max Gladstone

A contemporary Lovecraftian tale of art, obsession, and elder gods.There were no monsters at first, only “Arthur Dufresne Crispin,” who met me on the front steps of his apartment in the towheaded, tall, and lean, with long spidery fingers that closed mine in a strangler’s handshake.Don't miss Max Gladstone's dark fantasy tale Crispin's Model, a Tor.com Original.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fantasy, Lovecraftian, Fiction, Dark Fantasy, Science Fiction

34 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 4, 2017

About the author

Max Gladstone is the author of the Craft Sequence: THREE PARTS DEAD, TWO SERPENTS RISE, FULL FATHOM FIVE, and most recently, LAST FIRST SNOW. He's been twice nominated for the John W Campbell Best New Writer award, and nominated for the XYZZY and Lambda Awards.

Max has taught in southern Anhui, wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat, and been thrown from a horse in Mongolia. Max graduated from Yale University, where he studied Chinese.

Reviews

[Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ · Rating 4 out of 5]

New fantasy horror short story of the Lovecraftian stripe, free here at Tor.com. I loved an earlier Max Gladstone short story, A Kiss With Teeth, so I jumped on this one when I saw it.

The narrator is an artist's model (also part-time actress and wouldbe playwright) who takes a job posing nude for an odd and demanding artist who paints very strange pictures ... eldrich pictures, one might say. He strives to paint what lies beneath the surface.

It wasn’t a bowl and rose. It wasn’t not a bowl and rose, either. Take the bowl, and take the rose, and shatter them, cubist-like, through time as well as space, so in one facet the rose blooms and in another it’s rotten, the bowl here tarnished and there radioactive gleaming. But that doesn’t capture the twisted, callous distance of the effect. There was more time than time in that painting, and more space than space.

What will he paint when Deliah Dane poses for him? Ah, that is the question.

I thought this story pulled its punches a bit at the end, but it was still a fascinating read, and satisfyingly creepy. Good October read, especially if you like Lovecraftian stories!

Full review to come.

Content note: A couple of F-bombs.

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It wasn’t a bowl and rose. It wasn’t not a bowl and rose, either. Take the bowl, and take the rose, and shatter them, cubist-like, through time as well as space, so in one facet the rose blooms and in another it’s rotten, the bowl here tarnished and there radioactive gleaming. But that doesn’t capture the twisted, callous distance of the effect. There was more time than time in that painting, and more space than space.

no new story last week had me slipping back into the archives to find one i hadn't read, and i've been a review-slacker for a little bit, but i wanted to plop this one out before starting my 2021 december short story advent calendar project (which starts TODAY!)

i'd passed this one by numerous times in the endless scroll thru the archives, losing interest once the old LOVECRAFT vibe registered, but i decided to give it a go this time because GROWTH.

and it's not at all bad, despite my misgivings.

it's about an artist's model named deliah dane who takes a gig from a particularly eccentric painter; a man who cannot bear to keep a piece once someone has viewed it. that quote above is deliah's description of his version of a still life, which she insisted on seeing before agreeing to sit for him. that painting was promptly and unceremoniously thrown out the window after her viewing it tarnished it for crispin. artists, amiright?

but if his paintings of flora and crockery get turned into...that, what is going to happen to the human form via his brushstrokes?

funny you should ask, because THAT'S WHAT THE STORY IS ABOUT AND YOU CAN JUST READ IT AND FIND OUT!

it does get very lovecraftian, but mostly in the vagueness of its imagery and not in the blockchunk of its prose. my brain couldn't understand all of it, but that's l-craft's whole deal, so it just means the story was a successful homage.

okay, that's a wrap on 2021 tor shorts that AREN'T part of the december advent calendar. see you on the other side of this!



read it for yourself here:

https://www.tor.com/2017/10/04/crispi...

come to my blog!

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid, correctly creepy Lovecraft* take with a modern feel.

*mythos, not prose. Fear not the purple.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not half bad. I really liked the narrator. She had a brain in her head. 3 solid, Lovecraftian inspired, stars.

[Elena Linville-Abdo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was bizarre, beautiful and terrifying at the same time. In the best tradition of Gladstone stories.

[Fiona Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Max Gladstone turns his talents Lovecraft-wards; creating a story of an artist's model pulled deep into something more than she's seen before. It was creepy and unsettling, but so very readable - a great read.

Available free here: https://www.tor.com/2017/10/04/crispi...

[freddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it well enough, but short stories never seem to really do it for me tbh. I always want more, haha, which kind of defeats the purpose of it being short fiction.
Maybe I just need to read more!

[Karen ⚜Mess⚜ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creep factor activated

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A freebie short story from the publisher (Tor.com), billed as a Lovecraftian tale, which attracted me as I’m plowing my way through Lovecraft’s complete works as well as a Lovecraft biography. Arthur Dufresne Crispin is an artist. The narrator of the story is his model, Deliah Dane, whom he hires to pose nude for a series of paintings. Crispin and Deliah quickly come to an agreement as to the “rules” of her sitting: No drugs, no sex, no conversation, pose must be exact from session to session, and Deliah is not allowed to view the painting, either during or after its completion. His explanation is that “you may not recognize yourself…I paint the noumenal – that which lies beneath appearance.” Deliah is an aspiring playwright and actress whose modeling gigs pay the bills while she pursues auditions or pitches her scripts. The reality of modeling is presented with a touch of humor, speaking of requirements to be an artist’s model, such as pride, honesty (make friends with your imperfect body), an active imagination to get you through the hours-long sessions, a bathrobe for breaks, and a watch with an alarm (mostly to get you there on time). Deliah’s sessions with Crispin have an intense, eerie feel about them, almost as if Crispin is morphing into something else.

After the final session for the initial series of paintings, Crispin invites Deliah to a high-level exhibit of them. Deliah runs into her agent Shannon Carmichael, a force who “has better traction in heels on hardwood than most semis I’ve known on open interstates.” Deliah views the paintings and both recognizes and doesn’t recognize herself: “Crispin broke my face, or peeled it apart. I was fissured and fused and melted and monolithic, distorted into something more real, full, ‘there’ than I had ever felt.” So when she goes for the next sessions she mentions some of her impressions of the artwork, to which he replies, “The world is horror, and sickness, grotesque realities we suppress and ignore. That’s the space to break open, that’s the frontier. Not stars. What’s under the flesh.” He compliments her, says she is the best model he’s ever had, and wishes for her to help him paint this level of discovery, on a huge canvas. She becomes more frightened and wary as the progress on this painting progresses, punctuated by a fiery tragedy at the apartment of the man who had purchased the gallery paintings. Crispin states that he is “so close…the place beyond death…the root of the horror. The place where they lie sleeping.”

Ah, but I’ve already given away too much. Suffice it to say that the painting is a gateway for Lovecraft’s “Old Ones” to break through into the contemporary world. But our Deliah is a plucky sort, and the climax and denouement are very satisfactory. This is a very well-written story, and I’m going to look for other works by Mr. Gladstone. Five stars, with the caveat that s passing familiarity with Lovecraft’s Chthulu mythos and the ‘Old Ones” would be a requisite for a full enjoyment of the story.

[M. · Rating 1 out of 5]

What do we have here? Ah, a story of a woman. She has a full name, a job, a passion or two, friends - a life. How do we title this story? I know, 'That thing the dude is looking at'. Was this supposed to be a take on male gaze? I guess you can always say she was better than roses *shrug*

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good creepy Lovecraftian short from the POV of an artist's model sitting for an artist who pays very well but is decidedly odd...

[Rinaldo · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.2/5

I had been craving for some Max Gladstone awesomeness and I'm glad I read this one. This was a super cool, snappy short story about cosmic horror/mystery. Once again, Max Gladstone showcased his superb grasp of vivid and flowing prose with potent imageries. He invoked some Lovecraft while also channelling a bit of Gaiman here IMO.

In a nutshell, it's about a model (the nude drawing/painting kind, not the fashion one) who works with an eccentric painter, realising that there's something sinister brewing underneath. Crispin, the laconic painter, has been weirdly secretive about his paintings and his methods are weird. Aesthetically, I can easily imagine this story being illustrated by Junji Ito.

If you're after something fresh, light, but also brooding with cosmic horror, this is the book to go.

[Quỳnh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crispin's Model (Người mẫu của Crispin): Một câu chuyện Lovecraftian đương đại về nghệ thuật, nỗi ám ảnh và quái vật từ chiều không gian khác.

Ban đầu, mình thấy truyện hơi lan man xung quanh cuộc sống riêng của người kể chuyện vì, khi được hứa hẹn về Lovecraft thì bạn sẽ trông đợi vài thứ nhất định xuất hiện. Có một cảm giác chân thực khi dõi theo hai nhân vật chính. Hành động của họ đồng điệu với cá tính bản thân: Crispin và nỗi ám ảnh chết chóc khởi sinh từ chấn thương tâm lý, Deliah với tính bướng bỉnh không khoan nhượng, kể cả khi xuôi theo trí tò mò nguy hiểm lẫn khi kháng cự lại sức quyến rũ của nó. Càng về sau, câu chuyện càng trở nên kì dị hơn, lôi cuốn hơn cho đến phân cảnh cuối cùng, rất ấn tượng, và một cái kết đầy thỏa mãn. Giả dụ bạn không quá thích Lovecraft thì "Crispin's Model" vẫn còn nhiều phần nội dung thú vị về hội họa.

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love a lovecraftian story that centers black people-- especially, as here, one that flips good old H.P.'s narrative that The Horrors (tm) inspire white people to create art but drive nonwhite people to madness and riots. here, the black woman is the one to bring sanity to the insane, to pull the artist back from the brink of letting the old gods have their way with our plane of reality. and all with gladstone's trademark snappy dialogue (i hate when writers don't have their characters talk like real people talk; no fear of that here).

you can read it for free here: https://reactormag.com/crispins-model/

[Ivo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovecraft läßt grüßen .... packende Kurzgeschichte!

[Bobbi Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovecraftian is right. It's funny as you read it because there's reference to the way Lovecraft would flinch from actual description. This was delightfully creepy.

[luna · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars*

[Mikhail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice little creepy story in the style of a modern H. P. Lovecraft.

[Amit · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't like it at all. Only reason I giving it 1 star because of what Crispin got for his work against Delilah Dane. He deserved it no doubt...

[Anurag Sahay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tor.com Original by Max Gladstone, link here: https://www.tor.com/2017/10/04/crispi...

I read this because I recently downloaded a free collected edition of all Lovecraft's works in the public domain. Lovecraft has interested me in the past for multiple reasons, the biggest of which is the fact that he created a setting and horror ideal, and then let (in point of fact, encouraged) other authors to write in it. Lovecraft and his compatriots' writings, while themselves not often well read, have been so influential on modern popular culture, that you can assume that any franchise that lasts long enough will eventually include a reference to Lovecraft (sometimes going as far as containing a Great Old One) [examples off the top of my head: Star Wars, Warcraft, the Dresden Files, the DC Animated Universe, the beginning credits of Rick and Morty, and so on]. And so far, I've not even mentioned the insanely huge number of modern board games with a Cthulhu theme.

So when Max Gladstone releases a free Lovecraftian short story on Tor.com, I was hard pressed to come up with a reason not to immediate devour the story.

In terms of how the story goes, I can't compare it to the originals (having not read it yet), but the writing style has a very visceral feel to it, which I imagine is a staple of any story trying to emulate Lovecraft. The story is just long enough to build the threat of the Lovecraftian horror well, and just short enough to end it before it gets boring instead of disturbing. I read the story right before sleeping, and I definitely had some weird dreams as a consequence.

Overall, this story cements my love for Gladstone more than anything else; he's shown a large amount of variation on the types of stories and characters he can write well through his short fiction, and I'm really hoping to see some of that reflect in his longer fiction as well (in particular, I'm really looking forward to the non-Craft based novels he's currently contracted with Tor.com Publishing for). It's also convinced me to give Lovecraft a shot, though I don't know when I'll get around to doing that.

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

the writing is fantastic. a story about art that transcends, and the only thing better are the words painting the pictures. a very quick lovecraftian read on tor.com you can find here.

the cover illustration is what first caught my attention, it's beautiful. and now my desktop background. glad the story does it justice d:

[A.M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tor spoil us.
Deliah Dane is asked to be the eponymous Crispin’s art model.

He had an accent that would have told someone from Boston or Providence a lot about his parents and the pedigree of his dog, but told me jack-all, except that he was the kind of guy who introduced himself with his middle name.

Nice… his middle name is Dufresne, for the record.
I had to look up ‘psilocybin’ - ‘a hallucinogenic compound of the alkaloid class, found in the liberty cap and related toadstools.’
Ah… shrooms.

As we neared the end, he was soaked in sweat, eyes bloodshot. Done, he turned the canvas to the corner of the room so I couldn’t see myself. I thought the painting cast light into that bare cobwebbed corner.

Deliah, I am starting to worry about you.

The wind screamed louder, and branches struck the window.
“Crispin,” I said. “We’re three floors up.”
“Yes.”
“There are no trees outside your window.”
“No.”
“So what’s scratching?”
He did not speak. But I did not need his answer.

Screams… [it was just good timing that the possums had a fight outside at this very moment and made me jump a foot in the air.]

I get a real sense of the ‘King in yellow’ from this… and of course, Lovecraft.
And I note that I have the first 5 books in the Craft sequence in my kindle… and I probably should read them. Like NOW.
5 stars

Read it here:
https://www.tor.com/2017/10/04/crispi...

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Max Gladstone has demonstrated his vast talent in many a novel and short story I have read so far, and Crispin's Model is a crystalline example of why.

This story was fantastic.

Gladstone crafted a deep, unsettling piece of brilliant Lovecrafian horror, and I read it in one sitting. The images were disturbing, the characterization made you feel it as if you were there yourself, and the prose was beautiful in its insight into things beyond our understanding. It is not easy to describe sights that induce madness, to know what to describe even if what the characters perceive is conflicting, and to know what to leave to the imagination. There is a lot of texture in the imagery, and you can hear, taste, smell, feel the descriptions. Having a strong, no-nonsense, practical main character like Deliah was a treat as well.

I can't get the feel of the story out of my mind, and that is a testament of how well Gladstone set the tone. I can hear the brush scratch against the canvas, the trees hit the windows, the voices nearly out of hearing... or is it that we don't know the language?

I also loved the hint of Yog-Sothoth in both a misunderstood mention in passing and the imagery of the key, and I loved the subtle insinuation of the tuneless music that hint at Azathoth.

You knocked it out of the park with this one, Max.

[JM · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a life-long aficionado of lovecraftian horror, you soon realize that most works influenced by old HP and his friends/disciples end up being formulaic, lesser attempts. But hey, if you like Cthulhu and company, you take the bad with the good.

Every once in a while you come across something that's truly unique or fresh, such as the double homage to Lovecraft and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective in Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald," or the comedy in his "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar." When tales of Lovecraftian horror tend to follow the same format, deviations from their tropes, regardless of whether they are ultimately good or bad for the story, are certainly welcome.

This one harkens back to classics such as "Pickman's Model" or "The Music of Erich Zahn" but differs in two important aspects from traditional lovecraftiana: the setting is distinctly contemporary, without being unintentionally sci-fi-ish, and, more surprisingly, the protagonist of the story more or less comes out on top and manages to help the "cultist/madman" return from his brush with the Old Ones's insanity inducing influence and into "normal life." Now, THAT was an unexpected ending for this sort of story.

Plus, I have to say I enjoy attempts to describe indescribable sights such Crispin's still life of his cosmic horror-tinged perception of a bowl and a rose:

"It wasn’t a bowl and rose. It wasn’t not a bowl and rose, either. Take the bowl, and take the rose, and shatter them, cubist-like, through time as well as space, so in one facet the rose blooms and in another it’s rotten, the bowl here tarnished and there radioactive gleaming. But that doesn’t capture the twisted, callous distance of the effect. There was more time than time in that painting, and more space than space."

[Utsav Bansal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was brilliant! The version available on Tor's website had some issues in terms of clunky phrasing and grammar at times, which I would attribute to bad proofreading, but otherwise the experience was surreal. The author has a Victorian way of overdoing the lengthy despair monologues, but they kind of work in this setting and the pictures of horror he thus paints are all the more creepier in that context. This really makes me want to read some Lovecraft story because the description calls this Lovecraftian horror and I think it suits me!

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crispin's Model
by Max Gladstone
A dark look into Greif and creativity. I found the medium of the story, painting to be the most expressive of the ideas of overwhelming grief. That the tortured artist is lost in his grief is an old hat. But the use of specific reference that drugs, and self harm were not in the story make it more scary. What was he connecting to? what would he have brought out? how can grief bring out such a uniting darkness in two people? It's a question of mind, shared mind, and the shared world theology.

[Dallas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a great read. The tone is fantastically creepy. Like a spider. And I don't mean because a spider is creepy - just by being there - I mean like the way a spider creeps up, all slow and silent, without you even knowing. That's what this story does. And it's a great look at art, and how the heart of a sensitive man can become tortured after it breaks.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This was a really well done, moody, and dark story. It really reminded me of one of the stories that are told on the podcast Risk. It had a really great conversational tone, and a slow burn of weirdness and dread.

I don't want to get much deeper into this because it's better going in not knowing much, but this is a really great read.

[Tamara✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Damn this is some creepy Lovecraftian shit. Alas, like many short stories, I feel like it could have been fleshed out a bit more towards the end (clocking in at only 30ish pages..!) and still remained a tasty short story. That being said! Would totally recommend it to anyone who wants a spooky read on a short train/bus trip.

[Vicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

lovecraftian horror but with a happy ending !!! sort of lol

ngl i have a soft spot for stories of mad obsessed artists, and also the writing is SO evocative at every turn, i found myself reading the same lines multiple times just to rlly let them sink in, they're genius and brilliant and the horror imagery is tighttt