Don’t be alarmed. But there’s a man living on Capitol Hill who thought this up. Imagine you are a giant blue stingray and you are attacking Tokyo as we speak. That’s not even the scary part. What happens when a giant squid falls in love with you and won’t take no for an answer! The worst part is yet to come. The story unfolds in Ron Dakron’s newest offering, Hello Devilfish!
Dakron is the pen name of Capitol Hill writer and poet Ronald Christoffel. Now in his 60s, he moved to Seattle and has been writing here since he was 24. When he moved to the city, he said he wrote poetry and painted houses to make ends meet. He was part of the “Red Sky Poetry Theatre.”
“I like the Hill,” he says. “This is the first place I moved. The Hill has a great blend. I think it is the most multicultural place in the city. You can meet everybody here and it’s very walkable. In fact, I walk to work every day,” Christoffel said. The novelist is a mild-mannered paralegal by day.
Halloween is the only time of the year where everyone gets to be someone — or something — else. A giant aquatic monster might not be first on the list. It must have been a harrowing experience for the stingray to engage in a fight with Squidra and worst yet see himself turn human as a result of coming into contact with industrial chemicals. The book tells the story of his struggles as he tries to cope with the new changes and avoid the advances of the love-struck Squidra. The book is written in the first person, or as the writer prefers to call it, a “First fish” account, of the creature’s experiences.
At its core, the book tells the story of a monster turning human. Pretty spooky stuff. Asked if he has creepy stories on Capitol Hill, the novelist didn’t turn to any ghost stories or the macabre. “The Hill has gotten safer,” he said. “Thanks to a lot of people moving in. It used to be pretty dicey out here. I was younger and it was easier getting around that diceyness. Still I’m glad that it has calmed down. I would say that was the creepiest part!”
After whatever he needs to do to transform, Dakron will be reading excerpts from the book at Elliott Bay Book Company on Thursday, November 6 at 7 PM.