So You Want to Read Literary Horror: Here's Where to Start

[Dan]

The title of this post is a caption heading in an email sent to me by Unbound Worlds titled "Fear Itself: A Literary Horror Reading List". I'll provide the link to it here since Literary Horror is our thing and I imagine it will be of interest to all. Do you think they did a good job with recommendations for newbies to our genre?

http://www.unboundworlds.com/2018/01/...

[Scott]

Even though I liked them a lot, I would not consider A Head Full of Ghosts or The Library at Mount Char to be "literary."
And could not get through House of Leaves.

[Jay]

Have only read a couple of these. House of Leaves definitely qualifies, but may be a bit daunting for noobs. Mr. Shivers is a goodpick.

[Caleb.Lives]

Eh, Evenson is the only author on that list whose work I've both read and liked.

[Scott]

I liked the Evenson as well. Literary? I guess.

[Dan]

I've not read any of these. Darkansas looked the most interesting to me as I am a fan of southern gothic.

[Heidi]

I've read the first 5 and would agree they qualify -- though House of Leaves and The Library at Mount Char are both pretty challenging in their own ways. A Head Full of Ghosts is one of my favorite books of the past few years but its "literary" nature has as much to do with the echoes of other stories (one in particular) as it does with itself. I'd call them "postmodern" horror maybe.

[Jay]

So, literati will never stop sneering at genre writers and readers like bookworms will never stop sneering at gamers and comics fans?
I'm not entirely certain where I fall as far as "millennials", but I think they are just as aware of genre as any, but have more contemporary examples of cross-genre and post-genre works. These things deliberately define genres as specific things and then proceed to color outside the lines. And video games are as genre-stratified as anything, with the differences between top-down and side-scrolling shooters, 2D vs. 3D fighting games, etc.

[Scott]

I feel like millennials are more obsessed with labels than anyone.

[Dan]

Maybe I was born before my time then, because I obsess over labels like a millennial while I grant that few of my contemporaries do. I find labels enormously useful because I want to read in the genre and subgenre of what is currently striking my fancy, not just every-day horror. I also think I'd like what Randall calls intelligent horror. In fact, all of the books on the list look really interesting to me, the southern gothic being the one I think I'll start with (after I read a werewolf book I committed to).

Why do I like southern gothic horror so much? Well, I just love the following short story example of it: "When the Vampire King Went to South Carolina" by Grady Hendrix. http://weirdfictionreview.com/2014/06... Is this short story literary horror as well, or is it too funny to qualify?