Review: Monster, She Wrote

 

“Monster, She Wrote” - that book title sounds like a story in which it turns out that Jessica Fletcher was actually a vampire who killed all those people to get a drink (and come to think of it, that would be a cool story). It is, actually, the title of a non-fiction book about women in horror literature, written by Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson.

 

I stumbled over this gem by accident, seeing it mentioned in an e-book bundle which I didn’t buy in the end. Yet, this one and a second book caught my attention, so I looked them up on Amazon, and I bought them. In essence, this book simply lists important female writers of horror, speculative fiction, and dark fantasy, sorted by the time they lived in. What makes it so interesting is that those women often have started whole genres or were very influential during their time, yet are hardly mentioned any longer today.

Women wrote an amazing amount of horror and weird pulp, for instance, but they are hardly mentioned in discussions about it. A woman wrote speculative fiction about an alternate reality in the seventeenth century and that’s barely mentioned by fans of speculative fiction (who might also disagree that Mary Shelley wrote any - because ‘women, am I right’).

 

It was a joy to read about the way women write those stories, about how they write about transgression while actually transgressing, too, because at their time women weren’t supposed to write stories. How they understand the weird at the outskirts of society, which is so important for Lovecraftian fiction, for example, because they are out there at the outskirts themselves to a degree (even more so if they themselves are not white).

It was also a joy to get all those reading tips, because they’ve opened a world of new possibilities for me. Not only does every entry give a list of books by the author, but also of similar stories and sometimes biographies and movies. I enjoyed that very much.

 

The book is very thorough, giving a list of authors by the time they were writing in, breaking up the last few hundred years (remember that woman from the seventeenth century?) into chunks of time in which writing was similar, such as the gothic period or the horror boom of the 1980s. It’s also giving a nice look into the possible future of horror (although the authors couldn’t foresee the 2020 pandemic).

I like the structure of each entry - first, a little biographical section, talking about the women’s birthplace, upbringing, and general life. Then there’s a section about their writing. What topics were they using, what specifics did they prefer, what kind of horror did they describe? Finally, there’s a section with reading and, sometimes, watching suggestions. The structure is the same throughout - from the very first to the very last personal entry.

The last part of the book - the look into the future of those topics - is a little different, of course. There, the big topics of horror, speculative fiction, and dark fantasy are in the focus and the authors speak about the modern writers who have focused on them, have shaped and reshaped them, made them fresh again. This, of course, comes with more reading suggestions which are very welcome.

Especially these last few years, horror has come back as a genre of interest for many, so it’s good to look at all those old themes and tropes and to see how they can be updated to fit with the times. Of course, the old haunted mansion is not longer great - or is it? Even an old dog can learn new tricks and even an old trope can still work in a master’s or mistress’s hands.

 

Quite some of the stories listed as ‘required reading’ in American schools are not that familiar to me - the only of the stories listed there I ever had to read for school was “The Lottery” during an English class (which is a class to learn a second language, not the same as English classes in the US or the UK). Since I’m German, I’ve had a different list of ‘must reads’ in school - which, sadly, covered very few horror stories. Yet, I can still catch up and pick up a couple of the books mentioned there - at least those still around and hopefully around as e-books.

So far, I’m certainly adding more Shirley Jackson to my ‘to read’ list, together with “The Woman in Black” and a few other modern entries. I might even try to pick up a copy of “The Burning World” - that first piece of speculative fiction with an alternate reality. Perhaps I’ll retry my hand at Anne Rice’s books, too - although I very much gave up after “Queen of the Damned” once. I also think I have “The Mysteries of Udolpho” by Ann Radcliffe in an e-book collection of gothic novels - now I want to know how that guy was killed by a statue if there’s no supernatural entity around.

 

But even if you’re familiar with most of the texts, how familiar are you with the women, sometimes using male pen names, who have written them? How much do you know about their pasts, their lives, the problems they faced in real life - unlike or like their heroines and heroes? Many female authors have hardly been discussed, their lives disregarded - just as their stories are disregarded more often than not.

The writing itself is very good. The sentences are fluid, the book is easily readable. It’s a pleasant read, especially for a non-fiction book, as those often tend to be a bit dry. Then there’s the very pleasant illustrations with every chapter, even every section. The book looks very nice even on a simple black-and-white e-reader. The printed version or the e-book read on a devise with a colour screen will undoubtedly look even better. I was after the text, not after the looks, but this might be one of the few books transferred to my Kindle Fire as well, although I keep that one mostly for my audio books.

Speaking of audio books - there’s an audio version of this book as well and I’m looking forward to listening to it while I’m doing other things, like drawing or plotting. I can definitely recommend it.

 

“Monster, She Wrote” is a book I enjoyed reading very much. I can recommend it both to people who want a good non-fiction read for a change and to people who are looking for more information on women in horror, speculative fiction, and dark fantasy. It’s a very comprehensive book on the topic and offers a selection of interesting authors and texts from the very beginning of horror to the modern day you might want to check out.