21st-Century Gothic

Danel Olson

doi:10.5771/9780810877290

Summary

Selected by a poll of more than 180 Gothic specialists (creative writers, professors, critics, and Gothic Studies program developers at universities), the fifty-three original works discussed in 21st-Century Gothic represent the most impressive Gothic novels written around the world between 2000-2010. The essays in this volume discuss the merits of these novels, highlighting the influences and key components that make them worthy of inclusion. Many of the pioneer voices of Gothic Studies, as well as other key critics of the field, have all contributed new essays to this volume, including David Punter, Jerrold Hogle, Karen F. Stein, Marie Mulvey-Roberts, Mary Ellen Snodgrass, Tony Magistrale, Don D'Ammassa, Mavis Haut, Walter Rankin, James Doig, Laurence A. Rickels, Douglass H. Thomson, Sue Zlosnik, Carol Margaret Davision, Ruth Bienstock Anolik, Glennis Byron, Judith Wilt, Bernice Murphy, Darrell Schweitzer, and June Pulliam. The guide includes a preface by one of the world's leading authorities on the weird and fantastic, S. T. Joshi.

Sharing their knowledge of how traditional Gothic elements and tensions surface in a changed way within a contemporary novel, the contributors enhance the reader's dark enjoyment, emotional involvement, and appreciation of these works. These essays show not only how each of these novels are Gothic but also how they advance or change Gothicism, making the works both irresistible for readers and establishing their place in the Gothic canon.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2010
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8108-7728-3
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8108-7729-0
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 676
Product type: Edited Book

1. Contents No access
2. Foreword No access
3. Acknowledgments No access
4. Introduction No access
Ch01. From Asperger’s Syndrome to Monosexual Reproduction No access Pages 1 - 13
Ch02. The Sleep of Reason No access Pages 14 - 20
Ch03. Beasts No access Pages 21 - 31
Ch04. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood as a Modern “Bluebeard” No access Pages 32 - 41
Ch05. Death and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak No access Pages 42 - 49
Ch06. Cinematic Femme Fatales and Weimar Germany in Elizabeth Hand’s The Bride of Frankenstein: Pandora’s Bride No access Pages 50 - 59
Ch07. Ghosts in a Mirror No access Pages 60 - 71
Ch08. Repositioning the Bodies No access Pages 72 - 83
Ch09. Marvels and Horrors No access Pages 84 - 97
Ch10. What We Hide Within Us No access Pages 98 - 110
Ch11. Michel Faber, Feminism, and the Neo-Gothic Novel No access Pages 111 - 123
Ch12. Shedding Light on the Gothic No access Pages 124 - 134
Ch13. Gothic Western Epic Fantasy No access Pages 135 - 148
Ch14. Wonder and Awe No access Pages 149 - 157
Ch15. Drac the Ripper No access Pages 158 - 170
Ch16. The New Southern Gothic No access Pages 171 - 181
Ch17. Margot Livesey’s Eva Moves the Furniture No access Pages 182 - 194
Ch18. Fatal Women and Their Stratagems No access Pages 195 - 205
Ch19. A Monster Sensation No access Pages 206 - 214
Ch20. Fairy Goth-Mothers No access Pages 215 - 225
Ch21. In Praise of She Wolves No access Pages 226 - 241
Ch22. Andrew Davidson’s The Gargoyle No access Pages 242 - 249
Ch23. The Perils of Reading No access Pages 250 - 257
Ch24. Making Fish Out of Men No access Pages 258 - 268
Ch25. Raised By the Dead No access Pages 269 - 278
Ch26. Death Comes in the Mail No access Pages 279 - 284
Ch27. Vlad Lives! No access Pages 285 - 301
Ch28. Gothic New York in James Lasdun’s The Horned Man No access Pages 302 - 307
Ch29. Economies of Leave-Taking in Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves No access Pages 308 - 318
Ch30. Dread and Decorum in Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell No access Pages 319 - 326
Ch31. Renovation is Hell, and Other Gothic Truths Deep Inside Jennifer Egan’s The Keep No access Pages 327 - 341
Ch32. Nancy Drew Goes Gothic? No access Pages 342 - 352
Ch33. The Tyranny of Time and Identity No access Pages 353 - 361
Ch34. “And That Was the Reason I Perished” No access Pages 362 - 371
Ch35. Deadly Words No access Pages 372 - 384
Ch36. His Dark Materials No access Pages 385 - 396
Ch37. The Vigilante in Michael Cox’s The Meaning of Night :A Confession No access Pages 397 - 409
Ch38. London Demons No access Pages 410 - 417
Ch39. Haunting Voices, Haunted Text No access Pages 418 - 431
Ch40. Borderline Gothic No access Pages 432 - 444
Ch41. Narrative and Regeneration No access Pages 445 - 452
Ch42. Educating Kathy No access Pages 453 - 464
Ch43. Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men No access Pages 465 - 476
Ch44. Jeffrey Ford’s The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque No access Pages 477 - 485
Ch45. Gothic Maternity No access Pages 486 - 495
Ch46. Natsuo Kirino’s Real World No access Pages 496 - 505
Ch47. The Longest Gothic Goodbye in the World No access Pages 506 - 526
Ch48. A Labyrinth of Mirrors No access Pages 527 - 538
Ch49. An Icy Allegory of Cultural Survival No access Pages 539 - 551
Ch50. Are They All Horrid? No access Pages 552 - 562
Ch51. Snakes, Bulls, and the Preoccupations of History No access Pages 563 - 572
Ch52. Gothic, Romantic, or Just Sadomasochistic? No access Pages 573 - 583
Ch53. Shaggy Dog Stories No access Pages 584 - 594
APPENDIX A. Consultants and Contributors No access Pages 595 - 602
APPENDIX B. Honorable Mentions No access Pages 603 - 605
APPENDIX C. Novel Publication Details No access Pages 606 - 616
Index No access Pages 617 - 662
About the Editor No access Pages 663 - 664
About the Contributors No access Pages 665 - 676