Andrew K. Clark’s new horror novel honors Appalachian ancestors

Andrew K. Clark‘s debut novel, Where Dark Things Grow, takes place in a fictionalized version of the Asheville area during the Great Depression. But after the recent destruction caused by Tropical Storm Helene, it’s tough not to picture these familiar mountain locations in modern times and wonder how they fared.

Published a few weeks before the natural disaster struck, the book itself may prompt such reflections in more direct ways as well.

“As someone pointed out to me, weather plays prominently in the novel, too, although it’s more of a winter storm that the characters are dealing with,” Clark says. “Nature’s always a foil in literature.”

Set in fictionalized hollers and other rural patches of land outside the “big city” of Altamont (which was also Thomas Wolfe’s literary name for Asheville), the dark tale of 15-year-old Leo coming of age in supernatural circumstances effectively blends horror, magical realism and folklore to provide plenty of escapism from poststorm stress. Yet it simultaneously serves as a tribute to the types of folks most severely impacted by Helene — those who live just beyond urban centers and lack the financial security of the city’s major players.

“I wanted to tell a story that I haven’t heard,” Clark says. “I hear about the glory days of Asheville [in the 1920s]. I hear about that gilded age. There’s so much written about the Vanderbilts — and perhaps rightfully so. But the working-class people here, there’s not as much being told.”

Wulver folklore

Clark’s family is one such bunch. His ancestors came to the Barnardsville area in 1739 and migrated to Woodfin and areas around Alexander. While he’s yet to pinpoint another writer in his lineage, Clark notes that he comes from a long line of storytellers who had a significant impact on Where Dark Things Grow, particularly their tendency to mix folklore with religion.

“My grandmother would tell you a story about Jesus, but then she would also tell you, ‘Don’t sleep with your head facing the door because that’s how “they” carry you out,” he recalls. “She believed there were creatures in the woods, and you shouldn’t go too far in the woods.”

Clark’s grandparents were both teenagers in the Great Depression, and he sought to capture their voices in the novel. The author says his grandfather was the epitome of the adage, “You can’t ask an Appalachian man a question without getting a story,” and felt it was important to document that communication style in a work of fiction.

Primarily a poet — his collection Jesus in the Trailer was published in 2019 — Clark began Where Dark Things Grow as a short story about his grandparents and some of the things they experienced and talked about during the Great Depression. The goal of the project was for his children to have an informative yet entertaining record of the way their ancestors spoke.

“My grandparents had this rich way of speaking that’s very informed by their time period,” Clark says. “It’s a little bit diminished with my father’s generation; further with me and then much further with my kids, where they’re learning how to use jargon and learning their jokes from TikTok instead of from Papaw on the front porch.”

But as Clark kept writing, the story continued to grow until he realized he had enough material for a novel. With plenty of Appalachian folklore to choose from, he committed early on to only feature elements from his culture rather than cherrypick from Indigenous traditions. Enchanted by the wulvers from Scottish stories, he took the core concept of these horse-sized wolves that can walk on their hind legs and put his own spin on them.

“When you read some of the wulver folklore, you hear about the wulvers being very benevolent and putting fish in your window and doing things like that if your family’s hungry,” Clark says. “It’s a horror novel, so I use them a little bit differently.”

As Leo and his friends cross paths with a wulver and other dark forces in the search for the teen protagonist’s missing father, Clark grounds Where Dark Things Grow in details sourced from his grandparents. Though he regrets not recording his elders talking, their way of speaking and many of their stories stuck with him. And in cases where his memory proved rusty, he consulted his father, uncle and other family members to help flesh things out.

On the rise

One particular detail that’s stuck with Clark involved his grandfather’s recollections of precipitation. Clark says his relative “grew up very, very poor” with noticeable gaps in the roof of his family’s home, forcing those inside to maneuver to new spots when water fell in.

“My grandfather would say, ‘I hated the rain, but I loved the snow.’ And so the kids would lay on the floor, six people in this one-room house, and lines of snow would go across their bodies through those cracks,” Clark says. “And then the snow would sizzle when it hit the wood stove, so that was something that made its way into the novel.”

Fans won’t have to wait long for a sequel. Set in the same location in the 1980s and featuring several of the same characters, now in their 70s, Where Dark Things Rise is slated for a September 2025 release. Beyond that, Clark is amassing material for a second poetry collection, and he’s also begun work on a third novel.

“It’s totally different,” he says before reconsidering. “Because it’s me, it’ll contain magical realism and horror for sure, but a different set of characters, different world.”

To learn more, visit avl.mx/wordcapl.