Break of Dark | Plot Summary

Break of Dark Overview

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Break of Dark is a collection of five short stories recounting eery or supernatural occurrences which involve apparently average, everyday people in circumstances far beyond their normal experience. In fact, this idea is in part the meaning of the title: Mysterious, unknown, and sometimes wholly irrational aspects of the world—what we commonly refer to as the dark side of life—burst into or unexpectedly infiltrate the realm of the familiar and mundane.

Three of the stories, "Hitch-Hiker," "St. Austin Friars," and "Sergeant Nice," deal with supernatural beings who subtly influence and use human beings for their own dark purposes.

Two others, "Blackham's Wimpey" and "Fred, Alice, and Aunty Lou," are tales of ghosts and hauntings which hinge on the importance of human compassion—and the terrifying consequences of its absence. Although Westall's writing contains its own fair share of various inhumanities—violence, murder, war, and predatory sex, to name...
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