"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,
is, in its own troubled way, a glorious book, and a gorgeous poem of madness.