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    The Gargoyle in the Dump
    The Gargoyle in the Dump
    The Gargoyle in the Dump
    Ebook30 pages23 minutes

    The Gargoyle in the Dump

    By John Bellairs

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    About this ebook

    From the award-winning author of The Face in the Frost comes the story of three brothers who rescue a talking gargoyle from their neighborhood junkyard

    Michael, David, and Alphonsus Jr. (aka Fonsy) are spending the summer trying to blow up the town dock and playing marathon Monopoly games. On the brink of death-by-boredom, they head to the local dump in search of treasures—such as oil cans that Michael can use to build a submarine. But what they find is far from garbage.
     
    Staring out at them, between two black stovepipes, is the head of a grinning stone gargoyle with shifty eyes and a long snout. He demands that the brothers take him home to live with them, so the boys wrap him in blankets and cart him back in a wagon. At the house, the gargoyle regales them with vivid tales of his exploits in faraway times and places. He even comes up with endlessly inventive ways of terrorizing the boys’ irritatingly dull neighbors. Finally, this is a summer worth writing home about.
     
    The Gargoyle in the Dump is a recently discovered, never-before-published story. Also included are two pages of the author’s original typed manuscript and an introduction from his long-time literary agent, Richard Curtis. 
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateSep 22, 2015
    ISBN9781504016643
    The Gargoyle in the Dump
    Author

    John Bellairs

    John Bellairs is beloved as a master of Gothic young adult novels and fantasies. His series about the adventures of Lewis Barnavelt and his uncle Jonathan, which includes The House with a Clock in Its Walls, is a classic. He also wrote a series of novels featuring the character Johnny Dixon. Among the titles in that series are The Curse of the Blue Figurine; The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt; and The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull. His stand-alone novel The Face in the Frost is also regarded as a fantasy classic, and among his earlier works are St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies and The Pedant and the Shuffly. Bellairs was a prolific writer, publishing more than a dozen novels before his untimely death in 1991.

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    Reviews for The Gargoyle in the Dump

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    • 4/5
      Like many other children, I was always entertained by Bellairs' many books, which always struck a delightful balance between lighthearted and spooky. When I heard that this 'lost' manuscript had just been published, I jumped at the chance to read it.

      The story is truly vintage Bellairs. It is just a short story, however, not a full novel. Still, it's well worth the couple of bucks it's selling for.

      Three boys find a magical gargoyle in the local dump. Dragging it home, they're entertained by its ability to show them scenes from its storied history, to become involved in their play at being pirates, and most of all, to give the boring neighbors a bit of come-uppance.

      The feel is a bit like 'Swallows and Amazons' - but with children who are just a little naughtier.

      Admittedly, there were points at which I wished for more development of the characters, and I also felt that the story could've been expanded; with more gargoyle adventures. Perhaps if Bellairs had been with us longer, he would've come back to this piece and done more with the idea. It's still thoroughly enjoyable.

      Many thanks to NetGalley and Open Road Media for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are solely my own.
    • 5/5
      What a fun read this was for me. It takes you back to being a kid in the summer looking for something fun to do. I really enjoyed the story.

    Book preview

    The Gargoyle in the Dump - John Bellairs

    Bellairs_Gargoyle-lowres.jpg

    The Gargoyle in the Dump

    John Bellairs

    Introduction

    Literary agents take authors on for many reasons, most of them obvious. One motive that may not be readily apparent, however, is our need to protect the helpless. Because authors are artists, or at least artistic by nature, they are more vulnerable to the wounds inflicted by the world than most other segments of humanity. John Bellairs was in greater need of an agent’s protection than most. You felt that if you didn’t wrap him completely in the cloak of your protection he would not only be harmed, he would be eaten alive. It is not that publishers are any more predatory than any other business people, but unworldly authors have few defenses, even against normal publishers simply trying to make a buck. John had sold his first couple of novels on his own before seeking my representation, and when I saw what he had signed away, I had to trade some significant favors to get his publishers to revert the more noteworthy rights that he had yielded without so much as a bleat of protest.

    Thus covered by my agency’s paternalistic umbrella, John was free to produce the outlandish, charming, and wickedly wry works that have made him one of America’s beloved children’s book authors. Those not familiar with his work have only to look at the titles to deduce what they are going to encounter. There are figures in shadows, faces in frost, mansions in mist, underground rooms, haunted operas, magician’s museums, wizard’s bridges, warlock’s tombs, grinning ghosts, sinister sorcerers, chessmen of doom, zombies, necromancers, beasts, specters, and spellbinders. But the creator of this congeries of grotesques was a gentle soul with a round face, slightly protuberant eyes, and fleshy lips always parted in a warm smile. His expression was so completely open that your only choice upon meeting him was to extend your heart,

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