Spook

Klabund was the pseudonym employed by Alfred Henschke (1890-1928) who wrote from January to April 1921 during the fever of an illness the novel Spook which is here presented for the first time in -English in a translation by Jonah Lubin. This hectic creepy autobiographical story about a young man who suffers a hemorrhage in Berlin and is haunted by bizarre figures and delusions in his twilight state can be seen as both a late entry into the Decadent pantheon and a striking example of Expressionist fiction. A haunting and harrowing tale which seems to have been composed at least in part under the effects of morphine Spook is in its own troubled way a glorious book and a gorgeous poem of madness.