Book Club - John Richards’ The Gorgon Flower

Final Draft - Great Conversations

John Richards was shortlisted for the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Award in 2021 and the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer in August 2022. The Gorgon Flower is his first published work of fiction.

The Gorgon Flower is a wonderful collection of dark and macabre stories. I’ve always thought of short story collections like albums or mixed lolly bags. The best of them have something for everyone but you’re probably still not going to share because you love it all.

The range of ideas in The Gorgon Flower extends from the historic to the speculative. Each story challenges the reader with tilted perspectives and invites you in to discover the world in a new way.

I’m not going to try and cover every tale in the book but I would like to give you a sense through the longest and perhaps darkest tale; the titular The Gorgon Flower.

The Gorgon Flower

In the mid nineteenth century Lord Tobias Henry Edmundson embarks on a quest to rediscover the enigmatic Gorgon Flower. The flower was first brought to European attention by Tobias' father, an eminent botanist.

Since his youth Tobias has been plagued, some might say obsessed with the flower that he remembers as a carnivorous marvel that entranced those who saw it. His father’s original find was destroyed in a fire that also took his father’s life and now Tobias plans to pick up the trail

This is a strange and dark story told in two parts; first through Tobias’ field diaries and then through testimony from the ship’s doctor.

Tobias’ diary chronicles the long march into the jungle where the flower was last sighted. The expedition are met with horrific discoveries of missionaries left in some sort of decay that seems to pass over the indigenous inhabitants. The crew are alarmed, with many fearing it is only a matter on time before they are stricken by the horrible malady.

The Gorgon Flower combines psychological thriller with body horror to create a kaleidoscopic spiral into Tobias’ obsession.

Within the story the Gorgon Flower is both a siren and something of a post-colonial wrecking ball leveling the ambitions of those who would exploit the terrain.

The prose is crafted just so to entice the reader to believe whilst sowing seeds of doubt (forgive the botanical reference). This is fun, intellectual horror at its best.

And that’s just one part of the collection!