The greatest story ever sold: Mark McGurl argues that Jeff Bezos’s online behemoth has reshaped the novel in its own image
The Stanford University professor surveys the literary landscape in the shadow of the online giant.
Elvira, Mistress of the Dark returns in a new book that also recalls an earlier contender for dark queen of late-night horror
A volume of cultural criticism about Vampira and a new memoir by the creator of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark show how much, and how little, the two have in common.
Carvell Wallace on America’s history of exploiting Black pain for cheap scares
Nia DaCosta’s re-imagining of the 1992 film Candyman proves more effective because it does not traffic in white voyeurism in its examination of Black trauma.
James Han Mattson’s Reprieve is set in a full-contact haunted house
What could possibly go wrong?
Stephen Graham Jones returns to his slasher-film inspiration with the nostalgia saturated novel My Heart Is a Chainsaw
The author returns to the slasher film saturated ground he has trod before to provide a loving homage that leans a bit too heavily on insider knowledge of the genre.
Labyrinthine nightmares: “Treading the Maze” by Lisa Tuttle
Tuttle’s brand of quiet horror is at once a rejoinder to a genre that leans heavily on masculine aggression and a means to achieve effects more unsettling than an explicit presentation could ever be.
Stalking the self: “Consequences” by Willa Cather
Cather’s use of a close third-person narration lends her story an uncanny element of unease and creepiness.
The most wild, homely narrative: “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe
Poe’s 1843 tale is not only one of the greatest horror stories ever written; it is also a pristine example of internal integrity in the short form.
The ghostwriter: Philip Roth was a master in the attempted manipulation of his own image, both during his life and after his death
A pugilistic, self-absorbed author, a scandal-mired biographer, and a disillusioned scholar. What could possibly go wrong?
Scary stories: a single-volume anthology from the British Library provides a cogent and concise history of the literary horror genre
From 17th century Gothic novels to the modern-day zombie story, the horror novel continues to fascinate readers and evolve in the literary consciousness.