Posted on Apr 01, 2014 by
NickMy article “Hardboiled Horror,” about the intersection of horror and noir, is featured in the April issue of Nightmare Magazine, the fabulous online horror and dark fantasy magazine edited by John Joseph Adams. Those of you with a subscription can read it now. Those of you without a subscription will have to wait until April 16th to read it online for free. For now, though, here’s a taste:
Consider the works of Poe, who saw nothing but the inevitability of death and decay in all human relationships. Or Lovecraft, who watched the frantic hubbub of our daily lives with the icy gaze of a disinterested spectator and told us nothing we did mattered. (“Life is a hideous thing,” Lovecraft wrote as the very first line of “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family,” and if that’s not a noir sentiment, I don’t know what is.) In Shelley’s Frankenstein, the creature is the ultimate outsider. Everywhere he goes he is greeted with only hatred and fear, until finally he accepts this as the true dark, seething heart beneath society’s friendly façade. Once he embraces it by murdering Victor Frankenstein’s brother William, friend Henry Clerval, and wife Elizabeth, the creature becomes the very monster everyone thought him to be, and thus becomes an equal at last.
This issue also features stories by Dale Bailey, Nancy Etchemendy, Martin Cahill, and the mysteriously named Bones; Julia Sevin’s art showcase on digital artist Federico Bebber; and Lisa Morton’s author interview with Darren Shan. So if you haven’t subscribed yet, what are you waiting for? Nightmare Magazine is where it’s at!
Leave a Reply