In the Shadow of the Phosphorus Dawn by Rob True

In The Shadow of the Phosphorus Dawn is published by Influx Press

cw: includes (in excerpts from the book) violence, inc sexual violence

I have recently arranged to record an interview with Rob True, who is – without a doubt – one of, if not the, most interesting person I’ve ever met during my back and forth in and out (currently very out) with the London literary scene…

Rob True isn’t a writer who has made millions through his writing, whose books have been adapted into acclaimed film and television, and he isn’t someone that burns with an irritating and ungracious confidence in his own talent…

Rob True isn’t someone who networks aggressively and – despite at one point being in regular direct, public, communication with Joyce Carol Oates on Twitter – not someone who pushes and promotes themselves incessantly online…

I’ve met Rob True many times, follow his occasional Substack and have read many of his shorter pieces published over the years, but I realised as I arranged (and then unarranged and then rearranged twice)¹ to have a conversation with him, that I’d never actually read his 2021 novel, In The Shadow of the Phosphorus Dawn (Influx Press), despite a) having had a copy for a while; and b) the novel being short, something I really really really really really value in a text.

I thought I should amend this before the interview clicked around, so then I found² my copy and I read it and I fucking loved it,³ enjoying the book so much that I considered holding back publishing this until after I’d chatted with True on record in case my effusive praise caused any discomfort. But no. There’s no need for that. SAY WHAT WE MEAN… SAY WHAT WE FEEL…

In The Shadow of the Phosphorus Dawn is fucking brilliant, and brilliant in a way that so many other books try to be but almost always fuck up.

This is a book that is seeking to do and be almost everything – a life, a world, a person, a reality… A disreality… A a a a…

It’s full of sex and violence and drugs and, yes, there is sometimes language that would raise an eyebrow in other contexts, but that final word of the previous clause is key. The context.

There is a difference between extreme language used in a text to be gratuitous and/or intentionally shocking and language used to reflect the spoken language of the realistically depicted character/milieu. So, yes, Rob True in In The Shadow of the Phosphorus Dawn can do things without censure that other writers in different contexts could not. This novel is not the same as works from that strain of alt/indie lit that circles around notions of literary transgression that haven’t developed beyond Cocteau’s ideas of literary transgression⁴. Rob True is not an edgelord seeking to offend. Rob True is an artist. And a fucking good one.

Rob True doesn’t write books that are self-indulgent and overlong, he doesn’t write prose that is dripping in a need to show off and he doesn’t write prose that seeks to appeal to anyone and everyone.

Rob True writes gritty, serious, evocative, prose that is weightily emotive, that is violent, that is psychological, that is about darkness, yes, yet isn’t overshadowed or undone by its own seriousness.

It is work that, in another writer’s hands, could easily become pompous or feel like it’s hitting stereotypes even when it isn’t. But In The Shadow of the Phosphorus Dawn doesn’t ever feel stale: when there are moments here that do feel familiar or recognisable they are a) almost certainly undercut or b) read as reference rather than crux, as allusion and intentional parallel, rather than a failure to imagine something more unique.

This is pulpy crime novel, it is heroin picaresque, it is supernatural horror, it is novel of psychological disintegration… it is possession, it is psychosis, it is botched drug deals and gangster-detectives, it’s addiction and fighting and sex and regret, it is shame and honour and dishonour and money and greed and hope and a failure to hope and it’s, all in, a very short novel that casts a very long shadow on the mind.

If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.

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Some excerpts and comments below:

On p. 47, the protagonist and his girlfriend engage in some of their violent – though very consensual and mutually enjoyable – sex, and True’s description includes an evocative and multi-sensory line that is simultaneously harrowing and clear: “He fucks her like he’s punching an enemy he’s beaten to the floor.”

This is poetry, imo. It’s not a beautiful image, but it’s striking, it’s unambiguous, it’s – at least I thought – something you can’t turn away from. I’d be content to argue that it’s beautifully written.

–///–

On p. 154, very simple language used by an addict slipping back into substance use, clarifying both the character’s sense of self, their sense of collapsing options, but also too the edge and idea of personal mythologies: “The off switch is good for the soul. He wonders why he stopped pressing it.”

There is no ambiguity in passages like this, and though this particular example is not an example of a unique or complex phrasing, True’s ability to directly state his character’s complex feelings is something that cannot be overstated.

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HUNTER BRINGS A CLAW HAMMER DOWN ON THE BACK OF A BIG, square head, white light flash in the eyes. Man goes down hard, face bounce on the floor. Clothes stripped off. Naked body of fallen thug, prone. Cut under the cage. Hand right in, up to the elbow, grabs beating ticker and pulls down and out and free. Blood flows and grows a dark puddle, as The Hunter bites into the pumping heart. Swallow and bite, swallow and bite, ’til it’s all gone and the magic flows and rushes in the veins like crazy. Power grows in ecstatic bursts of building ecstasy and transforms The Hunter into superbeing. Mad god with a vulture’s head. Black eyes in a fixed stare, portals to nowhere. The whole room lights up and shines like heaven.

In The Shadow of the Phosphorus Dawn, p. 66

I thought I’d make that one big.

There are several passages like this, where the figure of the Hunter kills a gangster and eats his heart, moving through a moment of transcendence into another plane, into another world.

These moments are ambiguous as to the perceived supernatural element. These moments are violent and clear yet also strange and alarming and unique and engaging. What is it? What does it mean?

There are many interpretations you could make of the plots and the mysteries of this novel. And all of them are threads that could be pulled, likely indefinitely.

It’s a short novel, but it screams and echos and shouts. It casts a long shadow on a bookshelf, I think.

A real joy to read.

I’m very excited about my forthcoming conversation with Rob True and getting to share that with you all.

Support indie publishing and do – if you’re inclined – buy direct!

In The Shadow of the Phosphorus Dawn is published by Influx Press

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1. All the childcare and short notice freelance work is not keeping me at my most reliable… ↩︎
2. Regular readers may know that I moved flats last year and have yet to finish unpacking, so finding my copy of this novel required far more heavy lifting and filing than it had any right to. ↩︎
3. As I knew I would. ↩︎
4. Something many of us were/are guilty of teasing the edges of when we were/are young and stupid! ↩︎