Thomas Brown's Blog, page 11

Homeless Books

On Reviews

“…a beautifully crafted tale of what is left when you strip away civilisation – primal instinct. Gorgeously descriptive, poetic and eloquent the author masterfully builds an atmosphere of creeping dread leading as Midwinter approaches…”



It is a rare thing when a reader interprets a story in the precise way the story’s writer intended them to. In penning a story, the writer can offer only so much; it is then the reader’s role to bring their own experiences, perceptions and understanding to the table. Between the story the writer envisions in their head, the book in which it is captured and the reader who brings it to life, there is a lot of room for differing interpretations.

So it is a special thing, I think, when every so often you come across a review that seems to express wonderfully the same sentiments you carried when writing a story. Someone, somewhere, has read your work and appreciated it in just the way you intended. That is not to discredit other readers and their interpretations. It is simply a joy to hear something of your own voice in someone else’s words.

With this in mind, I would like to share a link to a recent review of LYNNWOOD (HERE), which really brought me pleasure to read.

Emotion, Horror

There is nothing quite like watching a piece of writing evolve from draft to draft. To this end, I’m absolutely elated to see the story I have been working on for over a year now taking a more definitive shape. I have poured so much of myself into this story; not necessarily in terms of characterisation, although that is certainly true to a degree, but in terms of feeling and personal philosophy. I think one of the things I love most about books – and this is especially true of horror fiction – is the emotion that they can evoke. If nothing else, horror is about emotion; a genre brought to life by fear, terror, repression and the constant struggle for characters (and their writers) to overcome these things, or at least negotiate with them. If I can one day share this latest struggle with the world through a couple of hundred pages, I’ll be a very happy man.

Frank Zappa

Merry Christmas

Just a short post this evening to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I really hope 2013 has been good to you and that the coming year is even better. I’ve had a wonderful few days surrounded by friends and family, which is what Christmas means to me, and I hope you’ve all had a similar opportunity to eat and drink too much with the people you love most.

Guest Speaking

This morning I revisited my old haunts at the University of Southampton, where I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak at one of Rebecca Smith’s writing workshops. I sometimes feel a little apprehensive when it comes to public speaking but the students – and Rebecca – were wonderful, asking lots of questions and delving into the recesses of my mind. We talked about a variety of subjects, from writing LYNNWOOD to finding a publisher, and it felt great to discuss my experiences with the group. A big thank you to Rebecca for organising the morning and to those who attended. It was a pleasure to chat with you all – old faces and new!

Our Writing

October Book Recommendations

“It was high summer and the breeze coming over the levee from the river carried a hint of cleanly rotting fish, a phantom of an oyster shell still slick with silver glue. There was another smell on the breeze, something browner, from a deeper part of the river…”

Poppy Z. Brite, ‘Missing’

If you appreciate atmospheric horror; the kind that creeps under the skin, seeming to both enchant and unsettle as it paints a picture of horror around you, then the following books are my latest recommendations. I have been meaning to share these titles for a while and now seems as good a time as any, with the evenings drawing in and Halloween upon us. They are in no particular order, being equally strange and beautiful to read. They have all influenced me in their own ways, and I hope they one day do the same to you.

Clive Barker’s BOOKS OF BLOOD

This collection of short stories is my current reading, by a man who needs to introductions. More visceral than my usual reading material, it is no less transfixing. The prose is lyrical and literate, conveying Barker’s love of language and imparting beauty to the horrors he writes about, which seem to sing…

Angela Carter’s THE BLOODY CHAMBER

“He dragged himself closer and closer to me, until I felt the harsh velvet of his head against my hand, then a tongue, abrasive as sandpaper. ‘He will lick the skin off me!’ And each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the skins of a life in the world, and left behind a nascent patina of shining hairs. My earrings turned back to water and trickled down my shoulders; I shrugged the drops off my beautiful fur.”

Angela Carter, ‘The Tiger’s Bride’

Carter is a master of Gothic fiction. This classic collection contains some of her best stories, and I would consider it a staple of every horror writers’ literary diet. Like many, I first encountered this book at school but it has stuck with me ever since, capturing my imagination in a way only a handful of other books have ever done. The stories are dense and poetic but worth taking your time over. 

Thomas Ligotti’s THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY

“We leave this behind in your capable hands, for in the black-foaming gutters and the back alleys of paradise, in the dank windowless gloom of some galactic cellar, in the hollow pearly whorls found in sewerlike seas, in starless cities of insanity, and in their slums … my awe-struck little deer and I have gone frolicking.”

Thomas Ligotti, ‘The Frolic’

I have blogged about this collection before but it definitely needs mentioning again here as he is one of my favourite writers. Ligotti has done something very special in the stories collected here. His horror has been coined ‘philosophical’, a term that tries its best to convey the strangeness, the uncanniness and the thoughtfulness of his haunting prose. For me, it is the feelings I get when reading his stories that make them among my favourites. There is something cosmic, something quite surreal (transcendental?) about his writing that makes reading them a real experience.

Poppy Z. Brite’s WORMWOOD

Strange, sensitive stories of the sort I aspire to write. Brite’s stories are at times subtle examples of quiet horror, at times savage and sexual. The characters within are very human, and often the horror at the heart of a story relates to their suffering or their situation. Atmosphere is also a big player here, drawing the reader into Brite’s rotting, perfumed world, which is, of course, our own, unashamedly shown back to us.

 

Adam Nevill’s APARTMENT 16

This book terrified me and inspired me in equal measure, and is the only story I am conscious of actually giving me nightmares. It is also the only novel recommendation here, the other books being short story collections. Nevill is an incredibly talented author of British horror and I am quite sure that he is going to be huge one day. What really captured my imagination here is the use of dreams and nightmares and atmosphere to generate a mounting feel of madness and dread. So much contemporary horror fiction relies on violence when it absolutely does not need to, in my opinion. Nevill takes us back to our supernatural roots, in this instance mixing art, horror, hauntings and insanity to create a beautiful, frightening work of fiction.

 

On the Nature of Horror

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear…”

H.P. Lovecraft

It is the age old question, and yet there still seems no certain answer beyond the inference that it relates in some way to fear. This is the unifying element, linking an otherwise vast spectrum of texts under one dank, dripping roof. In the same breath as ‘horror’ we hear a hundred words used to help define different incarnations: bloody, bizarre, creepy, cosmic, apocalyptic, visceral, quiet, supernatural, literary, gothic, gory, balls-to-the-wall – the list goes on. Some are simple adjectives used to help specify the fear in question. Others are entirely separate genres, in some way combining horror elements to tell their stories. Ultimately, I think it is a question of subjectivity, and personal taste. Fear itself is uniquely personal, never mind book-tastes and literary predilections. One man’s trash is another’s treasure, and all that: horror is different for everybody.

“One might say that the true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilization represses and oppresses.”

Robin Wood

I think this quote best surmises my responses to the term ‘horror’. This kind of horror is contemporary, drawing from real life and the strictures of society to give it resonance and impact. It comes down to the madness of society; the world we have made for ourselves, where we are helpless to live. It is also cathartic horror. Fiction helps me to understand the horror of the world, or if not understand it then for the few hundred words of a story’s climax tame it, and know a kind of peace. Often the path to this peace is no less fraught with horrors of its own.

My latest flash fiction, ‘Rush Hour’ (Almond Press 2013), is an example of one face of this. I use the looming prospect of an apocalypse to highlight the present state of our world. ‘Distant Shores’, another short piece, tackles the theme in a different way, using speculative personifications of the natural world to show how broken and artificial our cities are. My novel LYNNWOOD (Sparkling Books 2013) also explores this idea; the English emphasis on propriety and tradition and quiet village life driving its residents to unleash and revel in their more primitive drives, for one night a year.

These are the things that frighten me; not the unleashing and the revelling (this can be beautiful!) but the society that represses human living, forgotten for wealth and politics and commercialism. So this is the shape my writing takes; no better or worse than the horror that anyone else writes, as long as it is horror honest to them.

After The Fall

After The Fall is the title of Almond Press’ second collection of short stories, this time themed around dystopian/apocalyptic fiction. Entry was via their latest competition, and I am proud to have been shortlisted with my flash fiction entry, ‘Rush Hour’, which is my personal take on the theme.

The collection is due out sometime next week as a download, so if dystopian fiction is your sort of thing then don’t miss this one. The team at Almond Press are incredibly supportive of new and aspiring writers, and it has been a pleasure to work with them once again.