The New Gothic: A Collection of Contemporary Gothic Fiction [Paperback]

I read this in high school, about 10 years ago, so the only thing I really remember is the Jamaica Kincaid story 'Ovando.' I don't remember specifics of it, and maybe it wouldn't affect me now the way it did then, but at the time I was staggered by it. I am so glad I found this book so I can read it again. It's worth reading the book just for this one story, although I remember enjoying the rest of it, too.

Like most anthologies, this does contain a number of excellent pieces, but there are some problems with it as a collection. It looks like they were trying to cobble together the beginnings of a movement, but there is a fair amount of disparity in these pieces. The only thing they have in common is that they are all more or less literary works that present a somewhat gothic sensibility, altho I would argue that a couple of them dont even have that. Included here are works that are overtly gothic, but others that are from very different genres, like experimental fiction. A couple of the pieces are not even short stories, but excerpts from longer works, like a fine clip from Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire (I guess they had to include her), and a completely unnecessary bit from Martin Amis's London Fields (I like Amis, but there is no way you could consider his writing gothic, i.m.o.)

However, there are a few outstanding items here that made it a worthwhile read, and most of them were from women. Do women have a greater ability to write in the gothic mode than men? I loved Angela Carter's "The Merchant of Shadows", a witty take on a Sunset Boulevard-esque scenario. Ruth Rendell contributes one of her cold gems, this one a satirical piece about a posh lady who finds herself taking her first ride on a London tube train and beginning to freak out. Emma Tennant (another British female) checks in with "Rigor Beach", a very dark and perverse little number about a black widow-type who lures a man to her apartment, has sex with him, poisons him , and then has a little fun with the corpse. John Edgar Wideman's "Fever", a story I have seen turn up in other anthologies, is a brilliant (and yes, feverish) depiction of a pandemic disease ravaging a city (that might be Philadelphia) in some decade long past. Other good ones were Jamaica Kincaid's wildly creative "Ovando", McGrath's "The Smell" about a puritanical man's obsession with a strange smell in his home, Jeanette Winterson's sketch of a neighborhood oddball, and Scott Bradfield's "Didn't She Know", in which a sexy girl flirts (harmlessly, she thinks) with a bunch of lonely old retirees. Morrow's story about a man who compulsively steals little prized possessions from people was interesting as well.

Some of the other pieces were well-written, but the content did not particularly grab me. Overall this was a mixed bag. I am not sure how much the editors had to work with - I mean, there are a few McGraths and Rendells out there, but is adult gothic fiction really a big field that produces a lot of short stories? Maybe not.

I've been reading an awful lot of story anthologies lately, and the word "uneven" seems to occur to me just about every time. No exception here, I'm afraid. Despite the roster of respected names on display here, from experimentalists to literary mainstays, writers with horror/fantasy credentials and those who work in other genres such as mysteries, many seemed not to know what to do with the theme.

Complicating matters further is the editors' use of novel excerpts, rather than stories specifically crafted to fit here. The Anne Rice and Peter Straub excerpts, at least, were some of the better writing on display, and somewhat suited to the theme.

I most enjoyed the short stories of Jeanette Winterson, Jamaica Kincaid, Joyce Carol Oates and Angela Carter, all of them inventive, colorfully told and evocative. Otherwise, the most interesting stories were by writers I previously knew by name only, like Ruth Rendell and Scott Bradfield, or hadn't heard of before, as in the case of Jamaica Kincaid and Emma Tennant.

Conversely, some of the more established names whose work I looked forward to here -- Martin Amis, John Hawkes, Robert Coover, Kathy Acker and William T. Vollman -- disappointed. At least Acker and Vollman displayed a knack for stringing together a nicely-formed sentence. Amis, Hawkes and Coover all three lost me early on. Their stories seemed less about engaging the reader and more about amusing the writers themselves with puns, crudity and pointless wackiness.

I know some readers frown upon fiction writers, who are also editors, including work in their own edited anthologies. It's interesting that two of the better stories here are by the editors of The New Gothic, Bradford Morrow and Patrick McGrath. Morrow's "The Road to Nadeja" drew me in as much as anything in the book. A compellingly drawn narrative. McGrath's "The Smell" was strongly narratived, a great imitation of the old-fashioned Gothic in terms of both voice and tone.

In the end, I was left thinking this "New Gothic" movement, if there ever was such a thing (this was released in 1992), lacked the vitality and momentum to deserve a title, let alone to support a themed anthology of this kind.