Horror
A lot of “the supernatural” criticism tries to sound neatly boxed up. This one doesn’t. It feels more like someone laying out the genre’s nerves on the table and admitting they’re connected to all the messy bits people usually pretend are separate.
Which is probably why it stayed with me. Less tidy survey, more map of what keeps unsettling fiction alive. A bit less reassuring than the average academic title, which is refreshing in its own mildly alarming way.
Which is probably why it stayed with me. Less tidy survey, more map of what keeps unsettling fiction alive. A bit less reassuring than the average academic title, which is refreshing in its own mildly alarming way.
Academic horror criticism is better when it sounds a bit haunted itself. The over-neat approach usually flattens the thing it’s trying to explain.
A doctoral thesis expanded at twenty-four sounds like it might have more nerve than polish, which is often the more useful combination for this kind of book. I’m more interested in whether it makes room for awkward, messy examples than in whether it stays elegant.
A doctoral thesis expanded at twenty-four sounds like it might have more nerve than polish, which is often the more useful combination for this kind of book. I’m more interested in whether it makes room for awkward, messy examples than in whether it stays elegant.