American Gothic Tales
Written on November 5, 2007
American Gothic Tales “Many of the writers in this volume are not ‘gothic’ writers but simply–writers. Their inclusion here is meant to suggest the richness and magnitude of the gothic-grotesque vision and the inadequacy of genre labels if by ‘genre’ is meant mere formula.” So writes Joyce Carol Oates in a historical introduction to this anthology of 46 tales–tales that span a range from the Puritan paranoia of Charles Brockden Brown (1798) to the biological surrealism of Nicholson Baker (1994). Some critics have written that the gothic sensibility has no relevance in contemporary literature: by showing how gothic tales portray the all-too-current phenomenon of “assaults on individual identity and autonomy,” Oates proves them wrong. I predict this will in time be considered a classic and influential anthology.
Customer Review: A Better Name Would Be American Tales of the Weird
I don’t necesarily agree with Joyce Carol Oates’ defintion of Gothic literature in her introduction or that all of the stories in this collection are Gothic. The editor does a good job on the back cover, in her biographic section, and in the final page, of trying to advertise herself as being not only a “genius” but “rank[ing] on the spine-tingling chart with the masters”. I beg to disagree.
Traditionally, Gothic literature deals with the dark and mysterious and with the tortured soul. I had great difficulty seeing some of these stories as being gothic at all. Some of these stories would better fit the category of “tales of the weird”, but some don’t even fit in that category. For example, there’s a two-page story of a man leaving his wife and trying to wrest the baby from her arms in the dark. There’s another with two men in a spaceship contemplating life. Another is merely a story of someone tripping on drugs.
Granted, there are some good gothic and weird stories here. The stories are placed in the book chronologically. Many of the earlier stories are anti-climatic with endings that are little more than a tiny “Boo!” (if that). Such a story is Oates’ own attempt at a gothic story, “The Temple”. Others are page-turners. In trying to put in some more obscure stories, she’s left out better ones by the same author. For example, “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” would have been a better Gothic literature choice for displaying Nathaniel Hawthorne’s talents. And authors like H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, who greatly inspired writers of this genre, should have more inclusions in the book.
If this book were to truly be a book of good gothic literature, the following stories would remain (favorites starred): *Brown’s exerpt from Wieland, *Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, Hawthorne’s “The Man of Adamant” and “Young Goodman Brown”, Poe’s “The Black Cat”, Perkin’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, James’ The Romance of Certain Old Clothes”, Bierce’s “The Damned Thing”, *Wharton’s “Afterward”, Anderson’s “Death in the Woods”, *Lovecraft’s “The Outsider”, Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, Derleth’s “The Lonesome Place”, *Jackson’s “The Lovely House”, *Cheever’s “The Enormous Radio” (more twilight zone than gothic), *Bradbury’s “The Veldt” (more science fiction than gothic), Doctorow’s “The Waterworks”, *L’Heureux’s “The Anatomy of Desire”, Oates’ “The Temple”, *Rice’s “Freniere”, Millhauser’s “In the Penny Arcade”, *King’s “The Reach”, Johnson’s “Exchange Value” (good but not really gothic), *Crowley’s “Snow”, *Ligotti’s “The Last Feast of the Harlequin” (a wonderful story in memory of Lovecraft), *Tuttle’s “The Replacements”, *Etchemendy’s “Cat in Glass”, and Baker’s “Subsoil”.
Even though I felt that some of the selections for this anthology were poor choices, the good selections makes this a worthwhile read. Had she replaced the non-gothic and anti-climatic stories with more good stories by the above authors, the book would have been perfect. I will definitely be looking more into works by some of the authors like Ligotti and Wharton. I will not, on the other hand, be seeking out works by the editor. Her self-advertisement has fallen upon deaf ears.
Customer Review: Amazing collection of gothic tales…
I had no idea what to expect when I picked up this book. All I knew was that some of the authors sparked my attention — namely Joyce Carol Oates, one of my favorite writers, as the editor — because I had no idea that said authors wrote gothic tales. This is one of the darkest, most thought-provoking and downright sinister short-story collections out there. The horror in the stories are like no other ones I have read. I still haven’t been able to get some of these stories out of my head. My favorite stories are “The Black Cat,” by Edgar Allen Poe; “Afterward,” by Edith Wharton; “Freniere,” by Anne Rice; “In Bed One Night,” by Robert Coover; and “Replacements,” by Lisa Tuttle. This book definitely made an interesting read on my round trip train ride to be with family on Thanksgiving. American Gothic Tales enthralled me from beginning to end. I highly recommend this collection to those who are in the bargain for literary gothic stories written by literature’s biggest names from yesterday and today.
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Filed in: Goth Lifestyle.
