RAMSEY CAMPBELL AND THE NEW ABJECT EDITED BY SARAH EYRE & RA PAGE

​PRE-ORDER NOW - out 29th October!
Tales of Modern Unease

SOMETHING HAS FALLEN AWAY. We have lost a part of ourselves, our history, what we once were. That something, when we encounter it again, look it straight in the eyes, disgusts us, makes us retch. This is the horror of the abject. 
 
Following the success of Comma’s award-winning New Uncanny anthology, The New Abject invites leading authors to respond to two parallel theories of the abject – Julia Kristeva’s theory of the psychoanalytic, intimate abject, and Georges Bataille’s societal equivalent – with visceral stories of modern unease. As we become ever-more isolated by social media bubbles, or the demands for social distancing, our moral gag-reflex is increasingly sensitised, and our ability to tolerate difference, or ‘the other’, atrophies. Like all good horror writing, these stories remind us that exposure to what unsettles us, even in small doses, is always better than pretending it doesn’t exist. After all, we can never be wholly free of that which belongs to us.

Featuring Alan Beard, Bernardine Bishop, Ramsey Campbell, David Constantine, Margaret Drabble, Karen Featherstone, Saleem Haddad, Mark Haddon, Meave Haughey, Gaia Holmes, Matthew Holness, Adam Marek, Lucie McKnight Hardy, Mike Nelson, Christine Poulson, Sarah Schofield, Paul Theroux, Lara Williams & Gerard Woodward

The New Abject is released by Comma Press on 29th October, and to mark its launch Ginger Nuts of Horror is honoured to welcome some of the authors featured in the anthology to chat about their stories and some of the ideas behind the concept of Abject Theory. 

Today we welcome the legend that is Ramsey Campbell.  

Ramsey Campbell is described by the Oxford Companion to English Literature as ‘Britain’s most respected living horror writer’. His many award-winning novels include The Face That Must Die, Incarnate, and most recently The Overnight (PS Publishing). He reviews regularly for BBC Radio Merseyside.


The term horror, especially when applied to fiction always carries such heavy connotations.  What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions?


I write horror, and I’m proud to say so. It’s a branch of literature with an honourable tradition. Indeed, it emerged from literature, and for quite a time was regarded as an integral part of it. Few writers of adult short fiction didn’t write at least one example, which was rarely treated as separate from the rest of their work. On the other hand, horror fiction has also always been sniffed at by the snobbish, as far back as the field goes. Consider these comments: “…a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity… It cannot be denied that this book is nonsense… the greater the ability with which it may be executed the worse it is…” (The Quarterly Review, January 1818) and “we do not well see why it should have been written…” (Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany, March 1818) from contemporary reviews of Frankenstein. What do we do to break past? Write as well as we can, I’d say, and hope that worth will be noticed. It often eventually is.

Given the dark, violent and at times grotesque nature of the horror genre why do you think so many people enjoy reading it?


Dark – very often, yes, though there’s stylistic lightness in some writers, from M. R. James to Shirley Jackson and Robert Aickman. Violent – by no means necessarily, unless we count psychological violence (which I suppose we should). Grotesque – pretty frequently. I should say the enjoyment comes from the engagement of imagination, the reader’s and crucially the writer’s too. There’s a dark place in everyone’s imagination, but horror aficionados embrace it even if it takes them to the emotional edge (as, in my case, the films of David Lynch often do).

What were your first thoughts on being asked to write a story based on Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject? 

I first encountered her ideas years ago, and felt she was defining an aspect of my tales I’ve addressed instinctively for decades. Often when my characters confront the supernatural or the monstrous, they come face to face with something they’ve suppressed or denied about themselves, although for me it’s important that this insight can’t be used to explain away the supernatural aspect of the tale. So being asked to write such a tale was rather like being asked to be myself, and the trick was rather to avoid self-consciousness or a sense that I was replicating what I do. I think the universality of the theme of my tale – how we tend to reject our past selves and believe we’ve outgrown them – carried me past those problems.

It’s a subject that takes in some of the darkest and nastier aspects of humanity, such as misogyny, homophobia and genocide, how do you think horror in general tackles these subjects?

Responsibly, we’d hope, but that isn’t always true. Some horror fiction sadly displays misogyny or homophobia or xenophobia. Increasingly, though, the field is tackling these themes critically. I should say most of the best examples don’t do so consciously – too determined an approach can stray too close to preaching – but arise naturally from the author’s attitudes or their exploration of the material.


And how have tackled the subject within your story in this collection?   How did you avoid some of the traps and pitfalls that may have marked your story as being insensitive?


By telling as much of the truth as I could, which is always my ambition.


Did writing about this subject matter make you look at your own writing in a new light? 


Only in the sense of reminding me how many of my stories touch on Kristeva’s formulation!

The New Abject is published by Comma Press on 29th October as part of their Modern Horror series. Pre-order the book here and join Comma for the online launch event here.