Thanks to everyone who sent me recommendations!

[jbloocher at gmail.com]

Before I say anything else, I wrote a letter to Ramsay Campbell when I was a teenager. He wrote me a handwritten reply, 2 pages long, which is somewhere in my parent’s attic. I love that man!
You’re right about Vandermeer not quite catching the imagination like he does, but having read all of his work, I did love City of Saints and Madmen and Veniss Underground. I did see him at Edinburgh International Book Festival a few years ago and he was a surly ass incapable of being even basically polite to his fandom. Shame on him! Put a dampener on my enthusiasm, but I’d still read his stuff.

I love the Gothic work you mention, but Melmoth definitely outstrips them in my opinion. Loved Vathek. I’m going to go and look through some notes and come back with others that I liked.

Jb



Sent from my iPhone

> On 4 Nov 2019, at 12:57, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> 
>> I assume you’ve read all the gothic œuvre, but my favourite is Charles Robert Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer.
> 
> Melmoth is one that I actually haven't read, and I wouldn't say that
> I'm extremely well read in the Gothic tradition. I've read many of the
> Gothic classics, including The Monk, The Castle of Otranto, Vathek,
> Frankenstein, and a handful more. But I'm better read in the later
> 19th century French/Parisian "Satanic" side of things (of which Vathek
> is a great example, as are A Rebours and La-Bas, by Huysmans). Do you
> have any other Gothic Horror recommendations for me? I've added
> Melmoth to my "should purchase" list!
> 
>> Also I’m also guessing you’ve been there and done that with all of Jeff Vandermeer’s work(?)
> 
> Aside from seeing the film version of Annihilation (which I love) and
> reading a bunch of his short stories (as well as he and his wife's
> collection The New Weird), I have not. I thought some of his short
> work was interesting, but it didn't catch my brain and shake it, like
> the work of, say Ramsey Campbell (one of my absolute favorite authors
> writing in any genre) or (a new one for me) Mike Allen does.  Should I
> pick up the novel for Annihilation and its sequels?
> 
> YOPJ