The Intrusion

Reaching far beyond the well-trodden and tired "hard-luck on skid row" approach, Los Angeles singer/songwriter Gabriel Hart gives us his drop into the Great American Alcoholic Novel stream and in keeping with the old adage, he writes what he knows best. Exploring the labyrinthine abyss of the alcoholic blackout and it's lightning rod effect on the human condition, Hart makes a curious correlation between blackouts and spirit possession and takes what may start as a hack theory into a disarmingly convincing realm. Blending elements of noir, stream of consciousness, and bildungsroman - as well as the chiding voice of your local nuthouse doctor, the author pays tribute to influences diverse as Henry Miller's free association pastiche to Jim Thompson's unapologetic pulp. His prose often evokes the gothic narrative of Lautremont's Maldoror with his vivid descriptions of various corporeal and perceptual horrors, or at times the disoriented ill-fated meandering of Malcom Lowrey's Under The Volcano.