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Dysphoria: an Appalachian gothic
What can you save with a Mason jar? Money? A life? When Paul heads back to Red Knife, Kentucky for his father's funeral, his visit turns into an extended stay and a search for the people and places that made his dad so dysphoric about life. What he finds is years of tumult and abuse and shame, all centered on one day, long ago, and an accident at an abandoned mine tipple. The hauntings of the past become all too real for Paul, and, as he comes to grips with his father's death, his own life is endangered... A new Appalachian gothic from Sheldon Lee Compton, the man Donald Ray Pollock has called "a hillbilly Bukowski, one of the grittiest writers to come down the pike since Larry Brown."
201 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 30, 2019
6 people are currently reading
495 people want to read
About the author
Sheldon Lee Compton
29 books105 followersSheldon Lee Compton is a short story writer, novelist, prose poet, and editor from Pike County, Eastern Kentucky.
He is the author of the short story collections The Same Terrible Storm (Foxhead Books, 2012), Where Alligators Sleep (Foxhead Books, 2014), Absolute Invention (Secret History Books, 2019) and Sway (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2020).
Compton is also the author of the novels Brown Bottle (Bottom Dog Press, 2016) and Dysphoria (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2019).
His poetry chapbook Podunk Lore was part of the Lantern Lit series (Dog On a Chain Press, 2018) and his first full-length poetry collection, Runaways, was published in 2021 by Alien Buddha Press.
Compton's novel, Alice, was named one of the Best Books of 2023 as selected by the Independent Fiction Alliance.
In 2021 Cowboy Jamboree Press published The Collected Stories of Sheldon Lee Compton and followed that in 2022, on the anniversary of author Breece D'J Pancake's tragic death on April 8, 1979, Compton's memoir The Orchard Is Full of Sound, which the publisher describes as a book that "reflects on his [Compton's] own life, his struggles with poverty and divorce and violence and addiction and fatherhood and an early heart attack and trying to make it as a writer in rural Kentucky, all the while trying to trace the life and tragic ending of one of his literary heroes, Breece D'J Pancake."
In 2012, Compton was a finalist for both the Gertrude Stein Fiction Award and the Still Fiction Award. His writing has been nominated for the Chaffin Award for Excellence in Appalachian Writing, the Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for Wigleaf's Top 50. He was cited twice for Best Small Fictions, in 2015 and 2016, before having his short story "Aversion" included in Best Small Fictions 2019 and his short story "The Good Life" included in Best Small Fictions 2022.
Since 2020, he has taught in the Master of Fine Arts program at Concordia University, St. Paul. He also edits the Poverty House Collective and writes the interview series Chaos Questions for Hobart.
He is the author of the short story collections The Same Terrible Storm (Foxhead Books, 2012), Where Alligators Sleep (Foxhead Books, 2014), Absolute Invention (Secret History Books, 2019) and Sway (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2020).
Compton is also the author of the novels Brown Bottle (Bottom Dog Press, 2016) and Dysphoria (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2019).
His poetry chapbook Podunk Lore was part of the Lantern Lit series (Dog On a Chain Press, 2018) and his first full-length poetry collection, Runaways, was published in 2021 by Alien Buddha Press.
Compton's novel, Alice, was named one of the Best Books of 2023 as selected by the Independent Fiction Alliance.
In 2021 Cowboy Jamboree Press published The Collected Stories of Sheldon Lee Compton and followed that in 2022, on the anniversary of author Breece D'J Pancake's tragic death on April 8, 1979, Compton's memoir The Orchard Is Full of Sound, which the publisher describes as a book that "reflects on his [Compton's] own life, his struggles with poverty and divorce and violence and addiction and fatherhood and an early heart attack and trying to make it as a writer in rural Kentucky, all the while trying to trace the life and tragic ending of one of his literary heroes, Breece D'J Pancake."
In 2012, Compton was a finalist for both the Gertrude Stein Fiction Award and the Still Fiction Award. His writing has been nominated for the Chaffin Award for Excellence in Appalachian Writing, the Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for Wigleaf's Top 50. He was cited twice for Best Small Fictions, in 2015 and 2016, before having his short story "Aversion" included in Best Small Fictions 2019 and his short story "The Good Life" included in Best Small Fictions 2022.
Since 2020, he has taught in the Master of Fine Arts program at Concordia University, St. Paul. He also edits the Poverty House Collective and writes the interview series Chaos Questions for Hobart.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 5, 2019
Set in a small coal mining town with a dark history, Dysphoria tells the story of a young man Paul, who returns home for his father's funeral and ends up uncovering a secret from his old man's past, one that still haunts and torments a few of the town's residents.
While a quick read due to its length, it's certainly not an easy read due to content. If child and sex abuse are triggers for you, steer clear! Though slow to start, Sheldon pulls no punches here. Through the back and forth of time jumps from Paul's present into his father's past, readers will find themselves thrust in the midst of a horrible accident and the bizarre twists that come as a result of the attempts to cover it all up all those years ago.
While a quick read due to its length, it's certainly not an easy read due to content. If child and sex abuse are triggers for you, steer clear! Though slow to start, Sheldon pulls no punches here. Through the back and forth of time jumps from Paul's present into his father's past, readers will find themselves thrust in the midst of a horrible accident and the bizarre twists that come as a result of the attempts to cover it all up all those years ago.
May 19, 2019
Wow—talk about intense! So gritty and noir that it almost verges into horror fiction. I loved it. I can tell that Compton is a poet too—the writing is evocative and rich.
May 4, 2019
This is the story of Paul Shannon, who returns to his hometown, the amazingly named Red Knife, Kentucky, for his father's funeral. Paul's been gone from the hard-up coal-mining town for some years, and has a career in Philadelphia. Why did his father die? How? That's not the concern of this story, except now he's gone some questions are raised. Some quiet types are feeling free to talk. Some ghosts from the past hive up like a rash. The funeral and burial pass with little consequence; Paul is given his father's life savings, a cryptic note, and a farewell send-off from his grandparent's home.
Big Sandy's Transport, a flimsy car service selling rides to the airport in Louisville, costs $150 one-way. Heading out of town sharing a ride with a stranger is when this story begins, boomeranging Shannon back to Red Knife and the scene of a hushed up crime of depravity, vengeance, and secrecy. I won't give away any spoilers, but all aspects of dysphoria are touched upon.
As a standalone word, dysphoria is defined as a state of unease or dissatisfaction, and that unease is palpable in Red Knife. It's a dangerous place. I guess I'm a city type, because I didn't know what a coal tipple was (the place where coal from the mine is loaded or tipped into freight train cars below it), or a coal gon (type of mining rail car that dumps ore), or any other handful of words, but somehow I pictured them. I thought a tipple might have a crooked witch-hat of a roofline, thanks to Compton's capable storytelling.
I have never visualized a "dull silver pan, a baking pan that looked like the kind his mother made biscuits in" lying in the dirt and full of water with such significance. I've never felt the menace of "hairs sprouting here and there from various moles," or the whispered warnings when someone is "getting an edge," but Compton's prose also delivers sentences of beauty, as when "weak moonlight and star shine flinted off broken windows," or Paul's childhood memories come back to remind him there is love in this world, as honest as "making Pillsbury cinnamon rolls on food stamps day."
The grit comes from the memories, suppressed yet spitting up bubbles of heat when old traumas get triggered. Paul's father has fits of violence, but also a most unexpected tenderness when his son walks in on him studying Algebra. Paul's memories are those of a childhood full of psychological traps and snares, and also the slowly unrolling understanding in hindsight of the events of a parent's own trauma, and the debt that trauma extracts over a lifetime.
No spoilers in this review, but it's gritty all right. And it's good.
Big Sandy's Transport, a flimsy car service selling rides to the airport in Louisville, costs $150 one-way. Heading out of town sharing a ride with a stranger is when this story begins, boomeranging Shannon back to Red Knife and the scene of a hushed up crime of depravity, vengeance, and secrecy. I won't give away any spoilers, but all aspects of dysphoria are touched upon.
As a standalone word, dysphoria is defined as a state of unease or dissatisfaction, and that unease is palpable in Red Knife. It's a dangerous place. I guess I'm a city type, because I didn't know what a coal tipple was (the place where coal from the mine is loaded or tipped into freight train cars below it), or a coal gon (type of mining rail car that dumps ore), or any other handful of words, but somehow I pictured them. I thought a tipple might have a crooked witch-hat of a roofline, thanks to Compton's capable storytelling.
I have never visualized a "dull silver pan, a baking pan that looked like the kind his mother made biscuits in" lying in the dirt and full of water with such significance. I've never felt the menace of "hairs sprouting here and there from various moles," or the whispered warnings when someone is "getting an edge," but Compton's prose also delivers sentences of beauty, as when "weak moonlight and star shine flinted off broken windows," or Paul's childhood memories come back to remind him there is love in this world, as honest as "making Pillsbury cinnamon rolls on food stamps day."
The grit comes from the memories, suppressed yet spitting up bubbles of heat when old traumas get triggered. Paul's father has fits of violence, but also a most unexpected tenderness when his son walks in on him studying Algebra. Paul's memories are those of a childhood full of psychological traps and snares, and also the slowly unrolling understanding in hindsight of the events of a parent's own trauma, and the debt that trauma extracts over a lifetime.
No spoilers in this review, but it's gritty all right. And it's good.
February 23, 2023
CW: death of a parent, child abuse, domestic abuse, physical assault, infidelity,
Read for the "Read the States Challenge" for: Kentucky!
Do you ever have a book that just grabs your attention and never lets you go until you read it? It's happened a couple of times to me, books that I have no idea what's so fascinating about them to me until I read them. Usually, they're out of my "typical" genres, but I just can't let them go.
This is one of those books. I came across it relatively early in my return to Goodreads and I couldn't get it out of my head. Something about the cover, the subtitle (An Appalachian Gothic)... Or maybe just my love of gothic stories.
Generally, I prefer my gothics to be more fantastical. I want to wonder the whole time what's real and what's magical thinking, a mass hallucination... Something like that.
Dysphoria is very grounded. It's real the whole time. While not my favorite, Compton is a very talented writer. I found this to be a pretty well-paced read with some incredibly visceral scenes. Some were maybe a little too far out of my comfort level, but I'm definitely going to be thinking about the bottle shooting scene for a long time. That one was right on my level of interest for discomfort.
Read for the "Read the States Challenge" for: Kentucky!
Do you ever have a book that just grabs your attention and never lets you go until you read it? It's happened a couple of times to me, books that I have no idea what's so fascinating about them to me until I read them. Usually, they're out of my "typical" genres, but I just can't let them go.
This is one of those books. I came across it relatively early in my return to Goodreads and I couldn't get it out of my head. Something about the cover, the subtitle (An Appalachian Gothic)... Or maybe just my love of gothic stories.
Generally, I prefer my gothics to be more fantastical. I want to wonder the whole time what's real and what's magical thinking, a mass hallucination... Something like that.
Dysphoria is very grounded. It's real the whole time. While not my favorite, Compton is a very talented writer. I found this to be a pretty well-paced read with some incredibly visceral scenes. Some were maybe a little too far out of my comfort level, but I'm definitely going to be thinking about the bottle shooting scene for a long time. That one was right on my level of interest for discomfort.
May 24, 2019
What happens when tragic events from the past continue to play out in the present; when the past collides with the present? Moreover, what happens if one were to throw some flawed characters into this equation whose lives are interwoven into a tragic tapestry? What happens is Dysphoria: an Appalachian Gothic, by the very talented author, Sheldon Compton.
What impressed me more than anything else about this novel (my first foray into Appalachian Gothic) was the way that the author, Sheldon Compton slowly unraveled the story like peeling an onion. From the very beginning, with the funeral for Paul Shannon's father, Compton unraveled more and more of the story, and at the same time, the underlying conflict continued to build and build as we learn more about this terrible, tragic event that happened to his father.
To be sure, this slow build draws a reader in more and more, and to be honest with you, it's really hard to put this book down once the story gets its "hooks" into you. Frankly, I had to stop reading a few times to catch my breath as I digested the events Compton described. This is a book you're not going to want to read only one time. Sheldon's mastery with this story and the richness of the language he uses are something you will want to savor again and again.
Jeffrey Miller,
The Day the Earth Swallowed Louis
What impressed me more than anything else about this novel (my first foray into Appalachian Gothic) was the way that the author, Sheldon Compton slowly unraveled the story like peeling an onion. From the very beginning, with the funeral for Paul Shannon's father, Compton unraveled more and more of the story, and at the same time, the underlying conflict continued to build and build as we learn more about this terrible, tragic event that happened to his father.
To be sure, this slow build draws a reader in more and more, and to be honest with you, it's really hard to put this book down once the story gets its "hooks" into you. Frankly, I had to stop reading a few times to catch my breath as I digested the events Compton described. This is a book you're not going to want to read only one time. Sheldon's mastery with this story and the richness of the language he uses are something you will want to savor again and again.
Jeffrey Miller,
The Day the Earth Swallowed Louis
May 22, 2019
Dysphoria is billed as an Appalachian gothic, and it delivers on that promise. It's a leathery little fever dream of a book, the kind that reads fast and leaves a mark.
Compton has a way of drawing the reader into some pretty dark places in a way that never seems gratuitous, and the overall effect is pulpy without being lurid. There's violence and ugliness here for sure, but the family dynamics surrounding Paul, the central character who finds his life falling apart as he deals with his father's death and a long-buried family secret, keep Dysphoria grounded and give it a soul.
Compton has a way of drawing the reader into some pretty dark places in a way that never seems gratuitous, and the overall effect is pulpy without being lurid. There's violence and ugliness here for sure, but the family dynamics surrounding Paul, the central character who finds his life falling apart as he deals with his father's death and a long-buried family secret, keep Dysphoria grounded and give it a soul.
June 11, 2019
I don't know if there's a term for this style of writing, sort of Bukowski-esque with shades of Kerouac & the Beat Generation, but I find it hard to read. It's not a bad book as such, but the writing style made it difficult for me to get drawn in.
That being said, if you don't mind a slow-burner and very poetic prose, featuring some serious grit, then this book is for you. Xo
That being said, if you don't mind a slow-burner and very poetic prose, featuring some serious grit, then this book is for you. Xo
October 17, 2022
This novel is subtitled "An American Gothic." It has suicide, rape, murder, betrayals, shifting time sequences and passages of time as Compton depicts the life of Paul Mason, his father, uncle, oddly non responsive friends, and a wealthy local family one member of which may have committed suicide. While in his Red Knife, KY to attend his father's funeral, Paul is told by a man of indeterminate identity that his father really died spiritually a long time ago. That impels Paul to investigate what that meant. His father was convinced he was a failure (I'm sorry")", so much so that he had all the family framed images turned to the wall. Dysphoria.
What happened to Paul’s father had a strong Gothic presence, that extends not only to Paul's family but also to that of a small declining Kentucky town. The latter depiction is one of Compton's themes in his _Brown Bottle_ as well. Increasing poverty, dilapidated housing, struggled with multiple jobs to make ends meet, lack of choice in food and clothing, are all part of a community exploited by a population which has lost its sense of security—another form of dysphoria.
The searing climax forces the reader's ability to recognize Gothic varieties of captivity, injury, and sexual enslavement. The Gothic, in Compton’s novel, is a harrowing way of experiencing human initiation into emotional paralysis.
The only reason for my rating of less than 5 stars is the shifting between Paul's childhood and adult years goes on a bit to long, postponing a stunning climax.
What happened to Paul’s father had a strong Gothic presence, that extends not only to Paul's family but also to that of a small declining Kentucky town. The latter depiction is one of Compton's themes in his _Brown Bottle_ as well. Increasing poverty, dilapidated housing, struggled with multiple jobs to make ends meet, lack of choice in food and clothing, are all part of a community exploited by a population which has lost its sense of security—another form of dysphoria.
The searing climax forces the reader's ability to recognize Gothic varieties of captivity, injury, and sexual enslavement. The Gothic, in Compton’s novel, is a harrowing way of experiencing human initiation into emotional paralysis.
The only reason for my rating of less than 5 stars is the shifting between Paul's childhood and adult years goes on a bit to long, postponing a stunning climax.
November 30, 2020
Not sure about this one! At first it felt a little slow, then it picked up and definitely reeled me in. I was super interested to see where the story went, and I wasn't expecting that. Non-genre fiction isn't my usual thing, I read literary & contemporary fiction so rarely, and I was pleased that this one set up such interesting characters who begged your ear; please listen to our story, they plead. Not to mention the writing really was evocative. There are many reviews praising the author's writing style and I have to agree it's easy to gulp down. Thoughtfully written, well-plotted in pleasant prose, it paints a dark, sad picture of rural town life that feels all too real.
I did find the end to be kind of extreme. It felt like it was pushing itself into horror fiction, and it felt... I dunno, unreal maybe. Like, it got bad- the bad we were expecting, and then even worse than that. The author really does a good job of writing a splinteringly painful scene. Up until a certain point it felt like it was solidly in this world. But then the bad things just kept escalating, in excruciating detail, and it felt... well, it kinda felt like a bad horror video game. Where the writing is half-assed and they're gonna just kick it up to eleven on shock value, add a rape-and-torture backstory so you can never feel bad shooting dozens of bullets into the bad guys. To make the game feel "mature". It's possibly just that I've been exposed to too much of this "edgy" schlock writing, but it definitely made a few aspects of this book feel cheap to me.
On one hand this book works for it, it tries to earn this heavy stuff by doing the fieldwork no game has done (so far at least). It gives a lot of humanity to Paul, it lays out his past and present and how hard he's been trying and struggling, and how hard his dad has been trying and struggling. How hard everyone in this book has been struggling. And it felt honest and real. Dysphoria tries to pay its due in nuance and sensitivity for topics of child rape and the chain of abuse through generations. It has a subtlety of understanding here, I absolutely give it that. And you expect a sucker punch, you see the book winding up to take the hit for a while. So I'm not feeling like Mr. Compton is a bad writer. It just felt a little over the top- this particular set of characters who played the "villain" role, they felt like they were from a whole different book. And the end-end, with After all of the nuance and subtlety and human element, that is such cartoonish and underdeveloped imagery. That's just tacky, that's a villain who's been done over and over and it's a trope that at this point seems shallow for all the weight and buildup this book sets up.
It's just not great. So in the end I can't say this book was as impactful as I wanted it to be. In the end it looped around to feeling like an excess that didn't match the tone of the rest of the book, as good as that buildup was. Maybe it was just expectations going in, I dunno. I took a gamble and it didn't pay off the way I wanted, but at least I branched out and found something new and different from my usual to read. In that sense, this was a successful experiment.
Edit: Darn, looks like the author has been through the review page of this one- I don't know if he's bothered to read the one negative GR review he has, but I feel a regret that I didn't mention more directly how the man-in-a-dress trope he used to play up the horror is transphobic. I thought it was especially funny that his novel is called Dysphoria; simultaneously using trope so directly obnoxious if not outright harmful to the perception of trans women while picking a term common in the trans community as the title of his novel.
I did find the end to be kind of extreme. It felt like it was pushing itself into horror fiction, and it felt... I dunno, unreal maybe. Like, it got bad- the bad we were expecting, and then even worse than that. The author really does a good job of writing a splinteringly painful scene. Up until a certain point it felt like it was solidly in this world. But then the bad things just kept escalating, in excruciating detail, and it felt... well, it kinda felt like a bad horror video game. Where the writing is half-assed and they're gonna just kick it up to eleven on shock value, add a rape-and-torture backstory so you can never feel bad shooting dozens of bullets into the bad guys. To make the game feel "mature". It's possibly just that I've been exposed to too much of this "edgy" schlock writing, but it definitely made a few aspects of this book feel cheap to me.
On one hand this book works for it, it tries to earn this heavy stuff by doing the fieldwork no game has done (so far at least). It gives a lot of humanity to Paul, it lays out his past and present and how hard he's been trying and struggling, and how hard his dad has been trying and struggling. How hard everyone in this book has been struggling. And it felt honest and real. Dysphoria tries to pay its due in nuance and sensitivity for topics of child rape and the chain of abuse through generations. It has a subtlety of understanding here, I absolutely give it that. And you expect a sucker punch, you see the book winding up to take the hit for a while. So I'm not feeling like Mr. Compton is a bad writer. It just felt a little over the top- this particular set of characters who played the "villain" role, they felt like they were from a whole different book. And the end-end, with After all of the nuance and subtlety and human element, that is such cartoonish and underdeveloped imagery. That's just tacky, that's a villain who's been done over and over and it's a trope that at this point seems shallow for all the weight and buildup this book sets up.
It's just not great. So in the end I can't say this book was as impactful as I wanted it to be. In the end it looped around to feeling like an excess that didn't match the tone of the rest of the book, as good as that buildup was. Maybe it was just expectations going in, I dunno. I took a gamble and it didn't pay off the way I wanted, but at least I branched out and found something new and different from my usual to read. In that sense, this was a successful experiment.
Edit: Darn, looks like the author has been through the review page of this one- I don't know if he's bothered to read the one negative GR review he has, but I feel a regret that I didn't mention more directly how the man-in-a-dress trope he used to play up the horror is transphobic. I thought it was especially funny that his novel is called Dysphoria; simultaneously using trope so directly obnoxious if not outright harmful to the perception of trans women while picking a term common in the trans community as the title of his novel.
May 21, 2019
Dysphoria is a book about how the past shapes the future, sometimes for generations. It left me wondering about the rarely spoken of events in my own family and how the ripples caused by those events have affected everything I've known. It was a powerful read.
Sheldon Lee Compton is not only a gifted writer, but also a genuinely nice guy in real life. Can't wait to read what's next.
Sheldon Lee Compton is not only a gifted writer, but also a genuinely nice guy in real life. Can't wait to read what's next.
April 3, 2021
Fantastic writer!
April 12, 2022
Super slow to get going, almost DNF at about 40%, glad I stuck with it though. Disturbing for sure.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews