The Great and Secret Show

CLIVE BARKER

THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW

The First Book of the Art

HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by William Collins & Sons 1989

Copyright © Clive Barker 1989

Clive Barker asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780006179085

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007382958 Version: 2016-12-29

‘In part a tale of terrors, rooted in recognisable suburbia, and in part a mythical saga, romping through various layers of consciousness. You never know quite where you stand or whether at key moments you are intended to feel cosmically enlightened or just palpably spooked. It is often claimed for horror that it draws on the primal in our responses but, as moments like this show, the best stories can owe their force to something nearer the contemporary surface.’

Independent

‘A mixture of sex, Armageddon and Hollywood … ingenious and compelling.’

Daily Express

‘A social visionary. He crafts intricately designed hellscapes … a writer unbound by the traditional restrictions of the horror genre. Barker’s vision is at once startling and seductive. A finely tuned, dark allegory and a painful parody of our most cherished religious longings. Barker has initiated an exciting fictional exploration of the ramifications of our mythologies. He is at his best here … a true master at work.’

Times Picayune, New Orleans

‘This enthralling fable … the headlong progress of Randolph Jaffe from lost-letter sorter to evil master of unreality pulls the reader along in its ghost-ridden slipstream.’

Manchester Evening News

‘Trying to describe Clive Barker’s writing is like trying to nail smoke to a wall. Almost singlehandedly, he’s reshaping horror stories into something quite different – mystic fables for the modem age. An astonishing book, combining leaps of the imagination with Zen mysticism and psychology.’

Cleo, Sydney

‘The best thing he has ever written … pure narrative simplicity… what wonders are in store as he develops his themes?’

Fear

‘He has forged a singular style of “fantastical” fiction, blending bizarre eroticism and gruesome horror into wild tales of supernatural exploration … emphasizes ideas over gore with provocative and apocalyptic vision … dazzling skill.’

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

‘Acute and fluent, Barker’s novel is fantasy, or horror, or science-fantasy, or everything together.’

Observer

‘The Great and Secret Show is a fable for our times. A marvelously complex work, intricately planned: a myriad of subplots all come together in a final crescendo. There is an Everyman quality about the novel.’

Rocky Mountain News

‘Memorable characters, careening, converging plots, a precise, ironic, measured style … Barker’s a showman.’

Chicago Tribune

‘Clive Barker, polymath among goremeisters … the novel has moments of visionary nastiness, and Barker has certainly learned how to develop and maintain a coherent narrative structure over the extended length of a fantasy blockbuster.’

Q

‘Gripping, ambitious, a very imaginative work …’

Kent Evening Post

‘Barker has evolved into something more than just another horror writer … a never-ending fantasy joyride.’

Sacramento Union

‘Fantastic stuff … Barker writes extremely well.’

Evening Standard

Memory, prophecy and fantasy – the past, the future and the dreaming moment between – are all one country, living one immortal day.

To know that is Wisdom.

To use it is the Art.

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

PART ONE The Messenger

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II

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IV

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VI

PART TWO The League of Virgins

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II

III

PART THREE Free Spirits

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PART FOUR Primal Scenes

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VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

PART FIVE Slaves and Lovers

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II

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VII

PART SIX In Secrets, Most Revealed

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VII

VIII

IX

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XI

PART SEVEN Souls at Zero

I

II

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IV

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VII

VIII

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also By Clive Barker

About the Publisher

Homer opened the door.

‘Come on in, Randolph.’

Jaffe hated the way he said Randolph, with the faintest trace of contempt in the word, as though he knew every damn crime Jaffe had ever committed, right from the first, the littlest.