The Secret History of Twin Peaks – Mark Frost
The Secret History of Twin Peaks – Mark Frost
There are two types of people in the world, those who revere
Twin Peaks and those who don’t. Actually, there are probably three,
as the former can also be separated between the fair-weather variety
who thought the drama ‘lost its way’ after viewers found out who
killed Laura Palmer, and the true believers who were hooked all the
way through on the addictive blend of gothic mystery, arcane whimsy,
noir cinematography and alt-soap high-melodrama which upended the
essence of television back in 1990. I am most definitely in this most
devout sub-group, and this book by Mark Frost, co-creator of the
series with David Lynch, is aimed squarely at sating the obsession of
our choir of the faithful.
From the title I had thought this might be a ‘making-of’ memoir – I
couldn’t have been further off-piste. The sub-title is ‘A Novel’,
though in fact it’s a much stranger artefact than that. And ‘artefact’
is very much the word; this exquisitely presented, immense hardback
brick of a tome pieces together facsimiles of documents spread over
three centuries; notes, letters, reports, newspaper and magazine
clippings rolling back over the decades, teasing out conspiratorial
mysteries which align, one way and several others, with the weird
history of the town of Twin Peaks.
There is a twin conceit at work here. Firstly, that a mysterious
figure known only as ‘the archivist’ has compiled a dossier of this
scrapbook history of the town, its surroundings and inhabitants, which
reaches back through the past century and further, with his or her own
commentary on the events unfolding. Secondly, that this dossier has in
itself come into the hands of the FBI, with one of their own agents
providing a further commentary on both the source material and the
archivist’s own persuasions and objectives.
The
book plays with the legend of the series; revisiting characters,
examining their past lives, gathering them together within the
eldritch history of the town and its citizens. In fleshing out
elements only mistily hinted at on the screen however, the mythology
which emerges is far more classically conspiracist than what we saw in
the programme. Indeed, every stray paranoid ‘secret world’ motif is at
work:- Masonry, Illuminati, UFO / Roswell cover-ups, even the Kennedy
assassination. The lesser known mysteries surrounding jet engine
creator and occultist Jack Parsons and the strange death of Thomas
Jefferson’s explorer friend Meriwether Lewis are also key elements –
and far more intriguing to me at least as I came to them new. There
was always an element of this to
Twin Peaks, though the extent to which this takes centre stage
here brings a different, and in some sense more prosaic tone to that
of the series. What saves it
from being a Da Vinci Code-style
boilerplate is the intricacy with which the secret world agenda is
bound up with the town’s own mythology, and the successful ambience
created in suggesting diabolically awe-inspiring otherworldly forces
at work. The Black Lodge we know from the programme is not mentioned
by name, but it seems both this and the fiendish BOB are central to
its cosmology. The atmosphere is more Lovecraft than Dan Brown.
When characters from the series itself surface they do so with some
aplomb. It is a joy for a fan to be reminded of the love triangle
between Big Ed Hurley, Norma Jennings and her thuggish husband Hank,
the warring families of the Martells and the Packards, the femme
fatale treachery of Josie Packard. A narrative from Native American
deputy Hawk Hill is a particular highlight, the character’s bluff
wisdom superbly characterised and evoking the clandestine camaraderie
together with his fellow BookHouse Boys with great finesse. The case
notes from Dr Lawrence Jacobi, the town’s psychedelic psychologist,
are also immense fun.
Twin thrills then from this Twin Peaks: the quirky intellectual thrill
of the meta-mythology, and a rewarding visit to much-loved characters,
explored with skill by one of their creators. For all its enjoyment
though, the ultimate effect for me was one of slight un-fulfilment. As
co-writer and creator Frost is entitled to do with his characters as
he will, but the reliance on the more ‘classic’ conspiratorial motifs
mean the work is at times closer in spirit to
The X-Files than to Twin Peaks,
and as any Peaks acolyte
will tell you, that is very much the bronze prize of cult 90s TV.
For a work which sometimes
successfully channels Lovecraft, this could be fairly compared to the
later works by his devotee August Derleth which developed on
Lovecraft’s mythology, but which many devotees felt cheapened and
over-simplified the masterwork with black and white cosmology.
Ultimately, what is missing is David Lynch. The uncanny alchemy in the
imagery which he brings to the screen, aided and abetted by the
unsettling score of Angelo Badalamenti, cannot truly be captured in
the written word, brave though the attempt is. As enjoyable as Frost’s
book is here it is a mere hors douevre to what we’re really after – the new series. It’ll do
for now though.
Any
cop?
An
interesting artefact, curio catnip for devotees, a brave attempt to
put the spirit of the programme on the page,
failing but often still inspiring in the process. [First published on Bookmunch, 2017]
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