I put out some calls for recommendations for ‘urban gothic’ across Facebook and BlueSky, and got some really interesting responses, as well as ideas on what ‘urban gothic’ is. Ramsey Campbell posted a snippet of horror in a multi-storey car park as a comment in one group, which I can’t share here obviously but was fun to receive! (Books of Horror fb group is a good one for book recs!)
I posted some prompts to give a flavour of what I personally might class as ‘urban gothic’:
- decaying high rises with mould and rot eating into the residents’ souls
- eerie, dingy labyrinthine passages & alleys leading to dead ends and hiding dark secrets
- echoing corridors of worryingly silent hotels, where human connection is only theoretical and other people are only seen in glimpses, like ghosts
- double lives flipping honest, respectable glitz and glamour with seedy underbelly and lies
This got us into discussions of genre and subgenre, like ‘Liminal Horror’ and ‘Urban Paranormal’. Loads to think about! Maybe you would disagree with the recs being ‘urban gothic’ – I’m not sure they all fit my own definitions as I haven’t read them all – but I’m including all the ones people said. (MEXICAN GOTHIC by Silvia Moreno-Garcia was also suggested, for example, but I’d say that’s not urban as it doesn’t take place in a city or urban space for the majority of the book, but I think maybe the person who suggested that had a different view because it was contemporary and the lead is a city girl and it opens in an city setting.)
Recommendation List
GILDED NEEDLES – Michael McDowell
THE GRAVEYARD APARTMENT – Mariko Koike
THE MANHATTAN HUNT CLUB – John Saul
I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS – Iain Reed
HOUSE OF LEAVES – Mark Z. Danielewski
LESSER DEAD – Christopher Buehlman
MYCOPHILIA – C. B. Blanchard (free to read here)
MUNICIPAL GOTHIC – Ray Newman
DARK CITIES – Christopher Golden
THE WINDS OF MARBLE ARCH – Connie Willis
THE FORGOTTEN – Clive Barker
THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN – Clive Barker
THE MARIGOLD – Andrew F. Sullivan
SISTER MAIDEN MONSTER – Lucy A. Snyder
MINTY FRESH – J. Corvine
THE GOLDEN PERSIMMON – Lindsay Merbaum
THE CITY AND THE CITY – China Mieville
Leave a Reply