The Country Under Heaven
Louis L’Amour meets H.P. Lovecraft in this thrilling western epic about a former Civil War soldier following enigmatic visions that started coming to him after he survived one of the war’s bloodiest battles . . .
Set in the 1880s, the story follows Ovid Vesper, a former Union soldier who has been having enigmatic visions after an explosion at the Battle of Antietam. As he travels across the country following those visions, he finds himself in stranger and increasingly more dangerous encounters with other worlds hidden in the spaces of his own.
Ovid brings his steady calm and compassion as he helps the people of a broken country, rapidly changing but still reeling and wounded from its Civil War two decades earlier. He assists with matters of all sorts, from odd jobs around the house, to guiding children back to their own universe, to hunting down unnatural creatures that stalk the night–all the while seeking his own personal resolution and peace from his visions and the war that changed his life.
This epic journey across the American West with Ovid and a surprising cast of characters blends elements of the classic Western with historical fantasy in a way like no other.
Reviews
"Durbin skillfully combines cosmic horror tropes with American frontier fiction in this standout historical horror novel set in the Old West... This is Lovecraftian fiction at its finest."
"Durbin’s (A Green and Ancient Light) stellar and unique novel combines lots of heart, a plot that replicates the best of classic Westerns, and awesome cosmic horror into one terrifying, thought-provoking, and entertaining package. Recommend to those who enjoyed Lone Women by Victor LaValle."
"With an almost Jungian perspective of the collective unconscious, Durbin (A Green and Ancient Light, 2016) teaches us that resolution happens deep within all our hearts. Readers of The Country under Heaven will be transformed by this book."
"A triumphant snapshot of the hellish fallout in the divided US after the Civil War, The Country Under Heaven makes note of the amorphous individual terrors that those involved in the war carried with them forever after. This is a cosmic Western novel that doubles as a psychological treatise on the hidden wonders of radiant and mysterious inner worlds."
"Frederic Durbin’s new novel, his fourth, climbs high... the narrative is superior, utilizing fresh conceits handled in a complex manner"
"This is a book to lose yourself in. A book to be read slowly, to be set down for moments during reading, just simply to reflect on the power of the imagery it casts into the mind... Prepare to be drawn in."
"The novel is uniformly absorbing... this Western epic ticks every box for a superb read."
"The novel unfurls episodically and is narrated in the kind of lilting, old-timey vernacular that often rises to the level of demotic poetry. Like last year’s notable entry in the “weird Western” genre, Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian, The Country Under Heaven is best considered as a spooky tall tale told around a campfire on a dusty sagebrush plain while unseen predators prowl and howl in the darkness just beyond the glow of the flames."
"Under Heaven serves as a tintype snapshot of a war-ravaged nation, haunted by ghosts of brother-on-brother bloodshed, compounded by an ongoing war against indigenous people and by the ramping up of industrialization on the cusp of the twentieth century. Indeed, a core quality of the Weird Western is its underscoring of the nightmarish transition between the Civil War and World War I—highlighting the menacing leap from wilderness to civilization, from the human to the inhuman. Ovid is an ideal guide through this devastating metamorphosis, and Durbin’s novel stands as a darkly fun trip through the moral gloam of nineteenth-century America."
"Despite the horrors – human and very much otherwise – that Ovid encounters, Durbin allows rays of sunshine to penetrate the menacing storm clouds that hang heavy over the horizon, asserting that even in the aftermath of terror, hope endures."SFX Magazine
"[A]n excellent novel... What Durbin does best in the book is blend the natural and supernatural, even playing with the reader at times."
"I always adore stories that provide moving descriptions of times and places that are gone, especially when the descriptions are vivid and the characters are fascinating – which Vesper certainly does, and is. In the end, The Country Under Heaven turned out to be the right book at the right time for this reader, and I’m happy I took the time to travel along with Vesper and Jack – and even his Craither."
"[T]his book shook me out of normal reading mode in the best way. It’s just extraordinary, combining elements that would seem to repel one another—historical fiction about the Reconstruction era, the supernatural, and a Western—but that form the most memorable story I’ve read in some time, with writing to match...[a] wild, wonderful story"
"I decided to read the first chapter and see if it gripped me. I don’t mind saying that it did more than grip me, it grabbed hold of me and shook me for all I was worth... I read the book in a few days, and it is a testament to the easy style of writing employed by Frederic S. Durbin that I did. The language was both down to earth and poetic in that way that westerns often are, as though the rough and ready heroes of the time are struggling to put into words both the horrors and beauty of their new land."
"If you’ve read Durbin before, you likely recognize his style. A taste of horror, a bit of adventure, a veil between worlds... Country Under Heaven still spins an excellent yarn, one that I thoroughly enjoyed."
"Evoking the majesty and grandeur of the Old West, Durbin spins a stirring yarn about the aftershocks of battle and the struggle to overcome what haunts us."The Speculative Shelf
"A haunting, violent, touching, episodic fever dream of a novel that spans from the Civil War to the post-war Wild West. I’ve never read anything quite like it."C.J. Box, #1 NYT Bestselling Author of Three-Inch Teeth
"The Country Under Heaven is a brilliant exploration of the Old West and even older supernatural horrors. Elegant, thrilling, and deeply satisfying! Highly recommended!"Jonathan Maberry, NY Times bestselling author of the Joe Ledger thrillers and editor of The Good, The Bad, and the Uncanny
"The best of the [weird] west. Durbin invokes eldritch terrors to examine the peculiar, lawless hellscape that was the American West following the civil war. Delicately written, beautifully told, and bristling with dark turns of the unexplainable, The Country Under Heaven is a phenomenal read."Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger