Poppy Z. Brite's foreword to this collection of 45 short stories opens with a haunting entreaty: "Are you out there, Thomas Ligotti?" It's an appropriate question to ask, given Ligotti's invisibility in bookstores relative to other horror writers like Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Even Brite's own books are easier to find.
Little consolation may be found in how this is partly due to Ligotti's works being out of print, despite their earliest publication in the 80s. Whether it is testimony to avid fans relieving bookstores of these darkest of dark fictions or to certain unfortunately publishing decisions, the result is still a gaping lack for many readers of contemporary horror.
Ligotti knows about consolations; following Brite's foreword is "The Consolations of Horror," an essay he wrote for this anthology, a veritable manifesto expressing his own views on horror. Even more telling is how his stories themselves demonstrate these consolations. In the face of his rejection of the clear-cut moral dilemmas and satisfying closures of mainstream horror fiction, the unrelentingly bleak nihilism that remains must surely provide some sort of comfort to the reader. Such comforts we end up begging for, because reading these works can be an overwhelmingly wrenching experience.
Ligotti also knows about gaping lacks: his stories abound with such phrases as "an empty mist through an eternal twilight" ("The Journal of J.P. Drapeau"), and "the infinite, all-penetrating vision of things in which madness is the sole substance and thereby becomes absent and meaningless for its very ubiquity and absolute meaning" ("Masquerade of a Dead Sword"). While there is the occasional beastie to be found, such as the vampires of "The Lost Art of Twilight" and the insectoid forms that liberate themselves from "The Cocoons," the true horror here is found in the dark unknowable void of the human condition.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Thanks Andrew, very fine job, welcome!
2 - Eric Olsen
Whoa, your name just a lot longer, dude.
3 - Andrew
Is that all right?
4 - Chris Kent
OK Andrew, I'm really pissed off. I am going to have to add yet another book to my reading list. Thanks for the blog as I had never heard of this author....
5 - Andrew
You're welcome, Chris! It's my privilege to piss you off in this way. *laughs* If you want to know more about Ligotti, feel free to explore this site.
6 - Paul Chadwick
Ligotti is an insane brilliant treasure.
His latest, My Work Is Not Yet Done is up for a Stoker award, deservedly so.
A great, but seldom updated, Ligotti site is at http://longshadows.com/ligotti/
7 - Chris Puzak
I have to agree. Thomas Ligotti is a brilliant author. Did anyone read that unaired X-Files script he wrote? It was great stuff.
8 - Andrew
For Paul Chadwick: Your name sounds familiar. I'm not certain if you're the comic book writer, but your name seems to be something I came across before somewhere, perhaps in relation to horror fiction. Did you ever write a review or anything?
In any case, I agree when you say, "Ligotti is an insane brilliant treasure."
I forked up a significant amount of cash just to pick up My Work Is Not Yet Done, and it was well worth it, though I'm still reeling from the actual decrease in my funds.
I also posted that link, but Longshadows is dead in the water, which is unfortunate, as I enjoyed trawling through that site. The Current 93 writeups formerly on it were quite good, too.
Still, it pleases me to know that Thomas Ligotti Online is still around.
For Chris Puzak: They used to "Crampton" online, but I never got to read it, though. If you have that copy on your computer, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could email it to me. I'm dying to read it, and someday, I'll order the release from Durtro, but at the moment, as I said above, funds are low.