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Caitlin R. Kiernan is at the forefront of contemporary gothic,
weird and science fiction literature. She has written more than a
dozen novels, over 250 short stories, many chapbooks, along with a
large number of graphic works. For these Kiernan has won numerous
awards. This first full-length look at Kiernan's body of work
explores her fictional universe through critical literary lenses to
show the depth of her contributions to modern genre literature. A
prolific and creative writer, Kiernan's fictions bring to life our
fears about the other, the unknown, and the future through stories
that range widely across time and space. A sense of dark terror
pervades her novels and stories. Yet Kiernan's fictional universe
is not disengaged from reality. That is because she works within
the long tradition of gothic fiction speaking to the gravest
ethical, social and cultural issues. In her dark fiction, Kiernan
illustrates the terror of the tyranny of the normal, the oppression
of marginalized people, and the pervasive violence of our time. Her
dystopian sf propels today's dangerous economic, social, political
and environmental tendencies into the future. Kiernan's fiction
portrays troubling truths about the current human condition.
The tradition of supernatural horror fiction runs deep in
Anglo-American literature. From the Gothic novels of the eighteenth
century to such contemporary authors as Stephen King and Anne Rice,
writers have employed horror fiction to unearth many disquieting
truths about the human condition, ranging from mistreatment of
women and minorities to the ever-present dangers of modern city
life. In Journeys into Darkness: Critical Essays on Gothic Horror,
James Goho analyzes many significant writers and trends in American
and British horror fiction. Beginning with Charles Brockden Brown's
disturbing novels of terror and madness, Goho proceeds to discuss
the influence of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher"
on H. P. Lovecraft, who is treated in several penetrating essays.
Lovecraft was a uniquely philosophical writer, and Goho approaches
his work through the lens of existentialist philosopher Soren
Kierkegaard, while also probing Lovecraft's racism as exhibited in
several tales about Native Americans. Goho also discusses the Welsh
writer Arthur Machen's tortured tales of suffering and evil and
Algernon Blackwood's numerous stories set in the wilds of the
Canadian backwoods. The book concludes with a centuries-spanning
essay on the witchcraft theme in the American Gothic tradition and
a comprehensive essay on Fritz Leiber's invention of the urban
Gothic. In this wide-ranging study, James Goho examines the varied
ways in which supernatural fiction can address the deepest moral,
social, and political concerns of the human experience. Journeys
into Darkness will be of interest to readers and scholars of horror
fiction and to students of literary history and culture in general.
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