Gaby den Held - Charlie Dark, a magic realist love story
CHARLIE DARK 


   
Angels, a lying soothsayer, a transsexual singer, a lady with a mustache, Grace Jones as a goddess of love: a colorful parade of characters pass by in the imaginative novel Charlie Dark.The novel Charlie Dark is a tragic love story, but also a magic realist tale. 

 
THE STORY

Ángel Floris lives as a child in a fantasy world. With his stagy mother Meike, his youth is one big theatrical performance. But Meike suddenly disappears when he is seven years old. He comes into the harsh reality: his father eludes him and he is bullied at school. At this crucial point in his life a mysterious boy appears: Charlie Dark. The only one with whom he can share his frustrations. It goes downhill with Ángel. When he is just fifteen he gets into prostitution. At a certain point he succeeds to get himself out of this mess. He completes his education as a librarian, and leads a quiet life in Amsterdam. Then he meets a boy in whom he recognizes his old friend Charlie Dark. But is he really him? Who is Charlie?

 
 
GABY DEN HELD
           
                         
NEDERLANDS



THE FAIRY TALE

As a young boy Ángel listens to his mother Meike when she tells him a bedtime story. It is about Ángel and Charlie, two friends who jump in an enchanted ditch and end up in the underworld. The quest of Ángel and Charlie to find the upper world is the novel's leitmotif. They are followed by a black owl. Is he representing the the good or evil? They meet a marten-cat, monks of the Monastery from Below and discover and lose each other at the ball of a lady with a mustache. Will they ever find the upper world? 


See the Charlie Dark trailer 
Video, tekst and voice: Gaby den Held 
Music: Kevin MacLeod : Satiate - only percussion, and: Second Coming - no percussion 

Read a fragment from Charlie Dark