The Unworthy

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 86: The Unworthy

Agustina Bazterrica’s 2023 novel The Unworthy explores the relationship of its unnamed narrator with the repressive post-apocalyptic cult in which she finds herself. Jack and Kate embark on a harrowing journey through broken relationships and authoritarian control and dare to ask the most important question of all: can it be considered nunsploitation?

What does it mean to crave feel-bad stories? Where did nunsploitation come from? And why does everything have to be “elevated,” anyway? All these topics and more will be explored in this episode of the podcast.

Smoke City

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 85: Smoke City

Keith Rosson’s 2019 novel Smoke City is a supernatural character study that somehow makes the road trip adventure shared by a loose-cannon pop artist, a reluctant immortal, and a would-be ghost hunter into something much more poignant that one might expect. Jack and Kate hitch a ride with this motley crew and learn whether or not the real treasure is, in fact, the friends we make along the way.

Why does absolutely everyone in LA have a doorman? What is it that makes a dive bar truly magical? Is it ever wise to start a fight with a headbutt? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People.

Rick Swan's The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games

I was recently reunited with Rick Swan's The Complete Guide of Role-Playing Games. I had a copy in high school, but lost it somewhere along the way. The book's premise is simple: it's a collection of Rick Swan's reviews of the rpgs that had been published by that point in time, by which I mean 1990. Each game covered gets an entry describing what it is about, its level of complexity, and how good it is overall. 

Underneath that, though, is a fascinating snapshot of an era now long gone.

When I had a limited number of games available to me back then, based solely on what the local stores were willing to carry, the book was a revelation; it showed you just how expansive the rpg hobby was and had been since its inception. The book is full of games I would never have heard of otherwise. Who among us has ever played Swordtag? Or The Morrow Project? Or Sandman? I've met some Skyrealms of Jorune fans over the years, but Expendables? Never.

Returning to Swan's book now renders it a map of how batshit insane a lot of early rpg design really was. Check out KABAL's rules for determining your character's height:

Similar instances of madness: if you wanted to play a character of a gender opposite your own in DragonQuest, you had to roll for permission. The lowest end character type in the James Bond rpg has you spending 3000 points at character creation. Timeship apparently doesn't have rules for time travel.

If nothing else, The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games is a good reminder that your favorite game, yes, the one you think is the new revolutionary hotness, may also disappear beneath the shifting sands of time.

The Cherry Pit and the Bargain

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 84: The Cherry Pit and The Bargain

It’s time for Jack and Kate to explore their vintage paperback piles and trade tales from the yellowed pages of the past. Jack wades through the sweltering psychosexual Southern Gothickry of Donald Harington’s 1965 sex comedy (?) The Cherry Pit while Kate learns what happens when Hitler faces off with Dracula in Jon Ruddy’s 1990 shock-horror masterpiece (?) The Bargain.

Will we encounter the worst Van Helsings of all time? Why don’t the cool madams in exploitation novels get their own books? What are “big dinners” and how often will “big dinners” be referenced? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People.

Rogue Moon

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 83: Rogue Moon

Algis Budrys’s 1960 novel Rogue Moon is a masterpiece of Sweaty Sci-Fi, a freshly-patented subgenre that will be revealed during the course of this episode. Jack and Kate take a trip to the dark side of the moon to ponder the meaning of life, love, the universe, and manly perspiration.

What happens when you get some Jim Thompson in your moon mystery? Are women more dangerous than a murderous labyrinth on the moon? And what, exactly, characterizes a work of Sweaty Sci-Fi? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People.

Best of 2024

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 82: Best of 2024

Jack and Kate look at what they've read and watched in the year that was 2024 and make some recommendations in the world of books and beyond. The rules of engagement are simple: the hosts each choose one movie, album, TV show, and book that was the best experience of its kind, regardless of when it was actually produced. A little bit new, a little bit old, and a whole lot of weirdness is in store!

Join your hosts for a discussion that ranges from wicked governesses to the relative merits of Italian heavy metal to gothic roadside attractions. Oh, and murder. So much murder.

Hellraiser #3

This blog post continues my journey through the Hellraiser comics published by Epic that ran in the late 80s into the early 90s. As I stated in earlier installments of this series, these initial issues are all about the series finding its rhythm and discovering what kind of comic this is going to be. It's an anthology-style comic, collecting the work of diverse hands, but as the run progresses certain through-lines emerge that give the comic its own special character.

In issue three of Hellraiser, they're experimenting with the notion of running fewer stories, but allowing the stories present to run to greater length. All in all, I'd say the experiment is a success because there really isn't an even slightly below-par story in the lot. Here's what the third issue has on offer:

"The Crystal Precipice"

Jan Strnad, Steve Buccellato, Stan Drakes, Sherilyn Van Valkenburg, Michael Heisler 

As with all long-running horror franchises, it was only a matter of time until Hellraiser ended up in space. "The Crystal Precipice" even predates Hellraiser: Bloodlines by eight or so years! This story takes place on an alien planet being surveyed by four explorers. As they look through their binoculars at a mysterious crystal city on the horizon, they see a human-shaped figure waving to them.

Of course, that's not a man--that's a Cenobite. In fact, it's Face. Remember when I said he would be one of the break-out original characters of the comic? Face loves this strange alien world, calling it an "Eden of rock and dust and crystal." In fact, he has a great admiration for the floating crystalline entities that inhabit this world because they have left all the impurities of the flesh behind for lives of strict geometric order.

One member of the explorers is a great example of the unruly flesh of mankind: Ernest is a violent rapist who has been assaulting one of the women in the party. He's caught in the act and banished into the alien waste. Unfortunately, that simply drives him into the hands of Face, who uses him to lure the rest of the group to their dooms.

Ernest's revenge trip is thwarted when he accidentally hits an alien crystal while firing a gun at one of his former compatriots. Face allows for no accidents; unworthy of transformation into a crystalline entity, Ernest is instead taken to Hell and refashioned as one of the mongrel pets the Cenobites keep. 

As far as stories go, this is a strange one, but what I appreciate most about it is that the art style and characterization is heavily reminiscent of the horror comics put out by Warren back in the day. There's a wonderful throwback quality to "The Crystal Precipice" in its blending of weird science and horror that is particularly pleasing even if there isn't much depth to the story. Which is fine, as this one functions like an appetizer for the longer tales to come in this issue.

"The Blood of a Poet"

R. J. M. Lofficier, John Ridgway, Gaspar Saladino, Steve Oliff

In "The Blood of  Poet," a naive would-be poet from Kansas finds himself in 1920s Paris, hoping to find his way in the invigorated European art scene between the wars. Following a tip he gleans at an occult bookstore, which happens to have a cute employee who catches his eye, he seeks a room at the Pension Veneur--a rooming house where artists are allowed free residence. The only terms at the Pension Veneur is that any artist in residence is required to create and they must attend formal dinners within the house every night.

The formal dinners are a nightmare of rehashed arguments, recriminations, and general antisociality, punctuated by what appear to be epileptic fits. During his first night within the Pension Veneur, our poet has horrific dreams--rendered in a way that delightfully reminded me a bit of the work of Basil Wolverton--and discovers upon awakening that he has penned lines of truly decadent verse. His experience at the rooming house never improves; his fellow residents are secretive, combative, and their ways are shocking to a young man fresh from the Midwest. When he's invited to join in a sadomasochistic sex act, he demurs with great haste.

When he takes the cutie from the bookstore out on a date, he learns that her boss probably steered him to the Pension Veneur under a malign ulterior motive. That ulterior motive creeps into the picture when several small details converge: the protagonist learns that Lemarchand had a hand in the Pension Veneur and several former residents of the room house have disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Things come to a head when the main character is accosted by the other residents and chained to a wall as they operate a phallic-looking clockwork contraption that summons the Cenobites. (And they're the original movie Cenobites!) It is revealed that the Cenobites allow the Pension Veneur to exist in hopes that the artists they patronize will create works that capture their hellish ideas and translate them into artistic mediums. Those who fail are sacrificed to make way for the next batch of prospects. As the Cenobites approach, the protagonist declaims his infernal-inspired verses, impressing the Order of the Gash. They take one of the other residents to Hell instead.

The main character attempts to flee the house and the horrible bargain he has struck within it, but when he finds out that his lady love from the bookstore was slain in a random mugging he returns to the Pension Veneur, dejected but ready to accept his damnation. The artwork, and especially the color choices, in this story give it a lurid, sullen atmosphere that perfectly fits the subject matter. It's a longer story, in terms of the usual page lengths for the comic, but it uses that space to be languid rather than packed with frenetic plotting.

"Songs of Metal and Flesh"

Peter Akins, Dave Dorman, Lurene Haines, Phil Felix

"Songs of Metal and Flesh" is another story that has remained with me over the years; in my estimation, it ranks among the acknowledged classics of Epic's Hellraiser run. Like "The Blood of a Poet," this story concerns art--in this case, classical music. Since childhood, Jason Marlowe has been blind. True to the trope, Jason's "other senses" compensate for his lack of vision and he becomes a musical prodigy. He wins a scholarship to a musical academy where he not only excels, but meets a woman named Deborah who will change his life.

His sexual experiences with Deborah put all those heightened sense to good use. In their pleasure, he finds access to the "hidden melodies and mysterious harmonies" that had alluded him. However, Jason Marlowe also discovers a rival in fellow student Stephen Middleton. Unsatisfied with competing against Jason musically, Stephen also seduces Deborah. Stephen assumes that because Jason cannot see Deborah's infidelity he is incapable of detecting it, but he can feel it, smell it, and hear their "cruel excitement."

Deborah introduces sadomasochism into her relationship with Jason, tying him to the bed and slashing his chest with a knife. This not only brings a new flavor of sexual pleasure into Jason's life, but gives him another way to access "the hidden sonatas." Meanwhile, Stephen breaks into Jason's home and places razor blades between the keys of his piano so that the next time he plays he maims his hand. 

Stephen exits to a successful career as a touring musician. The story notes, with cold cruelty, that he cheats on Deborah in every city and that she eventually dies, unloved, of a cancer that eats away at her.

Jason is forced to pivot from performer to composer, but his experiences with Stephen and Deborah have fueled him to creative heights he would not have reached otherwise. Music becomes a puzzle to solve and--well, you see where this is going, right? At the cresendo of his composition, he drags his naked body along a wall studded with razor blades, then spins en pointe, sending droplets of his blood to complete the sheet music he has scattered before him on the ground.

At the debut of Jason's piece everything goes to Hell--literally. Stephen is the pianist entrusted to bring the music to life, of course, and when he does he finds himself snared on hooked chains, the Cenobites now part of the audience. What follows is pure Grand Guignol style theatrics: headless violinists saw at their instruments and the audience is flayed alive. In the end, Jason finds himself in Leviathan's realm. His vision has been restored, so that he might see the horrors around him, but he has now lost his senses of touch, smell, taste, and hearing. Once an instrument for producing Hell's music, he is now a physical instrument plucked and drummed upon for eternity.

As I said at the start, I consider "Songs of Metal and Flesh" to be a Hellraiser classic--and for good reason. It is an exceedingly cruel story, and the way it combines desire, beauty, and pain into a heady mix is entirely on theme. I also love the art style. There is a certain naivety to the coloring (colored pencils, I think) that mirrors Jason's lack of experience and unguarded descent. This one is hard to beat.

Hellraiser #2

This post is the second installment of my re-read of the Hellraiser comics published by Epic. The first issue was undeniably a cracking start, even if it played fast and loose with the idea of a unified "Hellraiser Mythos," but can the second issue rival that tough act to follow? Let's dig in and find out.

My thoughts on each of the stories contained in the issue are below. As always, the stories chosen for the issue offer a nice range of horror tales, albeit that they are united under the Hellraiser rubric. We've got the political and corporal terrors of the prison, the horrors of the hospital, virtual reality, and more!

"The Vault"

Marc McLaurin, Jorge Zaffino, Phil Felix, Julie Michel

"The Vault" concerns a violent prison in an unnamed South American country where a revolution is currently sputtering to its end. A prisoner within the facility sold out his comrades to get possession of a Lament Configuration, which he inexplicably still has in prison. Opening the box removes him from incarceration, but that poses a problem for the facility's commandant, who sees the unexplained escape as a blotch on his record of keeping law and order. And he is a big believer in law and order; he believes in structure and imposing structure from top to bottom, bottom to top, and from the middle outward.

To rectify what he sees as a lapse in order in the prison, the commandant tortures various prisoners into solving the left-behind puzzle box to figure out how the escapee fled his domain. The puzzle doesn't open until he beats a prisoner while holding it. The Cenobite who arrives is very disappointed in the commandant's lack of self-control. The story ends with the commandant being told that this fault can be corrected--from top to bottom, bottom to top, and from the middle outward.

This is an interesting story. I think the way it focus on chaos (symbolized here by the failed revolution) versus order (here played by the carceral state) is a nice thematic contrast. The art style, with is deep, shadowy blacks and muted orange and yellow palette, also really works well with the subject matter.

"Divers Hands"

James Robert Smith and Mike Hoffman

A patient named Vincent in the last leper colony in the continental United States has got his hands--or, rather, what's left of his hands--on a Lament Configuration. Vincent believes that successful manipulation of the puzzle box will grant him a cure for his ravaged body or perhaps give him a new body entirely.

Enter a new nurse named Mary at the treatment center. Vincent quickly seduces her; not romantically, of course, but he coaxes her into solving the puzzle for him since his hands are no longer up to the task. Although, it must be noted, that there is a sexual component to the attraction between them that rings true to Hellraiser's mixture of desperation and desire. While having sex with her boyfriend, Mary imagines the leper atop her in his place.

The Cenobites arrive when Mary solves the puzzle as Vincent's proxy. We now learn that this isn't the first time has had another solve the Lament Figuration on his behalf. Vincent's goal isn't to have the Cenobites cure his affliction per se; he believes that if he leads enough souls to Hell they will remake him as a Cenobite. 

Mary is taken by the Cenobites, but before she enters Hell she flings the Lament Configuration away. Believing that it must have reappeared somewhere else in the institute, Vincent begins scouring the hallways until he finds it. When he does, the Cenobites reappear, apparently re-summoned to their infernal work. The institute, it turns out, is also a puzzle created by LeMarchand, and traversing its corridors has "solved" it. With no proxy to offer them, Vincent is taken as their victim--but not before he sees Mary again, refashioned into a tangle of whole, healthy limbs.

The pastel colors and the unwaveringly bland expressions given to the characters in "Divers Hands" really sells the "clinical" horror of the piece. Everything, from the progress of Vincent's disease to the sterile Hell of the facility, underlines the cold, unfeeling betrayals that Vincent engages in and adds to the horror of the red-hot desires lurking under the surface. This is one of the all-time classics to emerge from the Epic run, in my opinion.

"Writer's Lament"

Dwayne McDuffie, Kevin O'Neil, and Jim Novak

I'd later come to know Kevin O'Neil for his work on The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, of my favorite comics of all time, so you'd think this one would appeal to me. And yet...I really don't.

"Writer's Lament" follows the travails of a freelance writer named Dave who is already in Hell. Used to writing scripts to fit a client's specifications, Dave is surprised one day to find that he's created something actually artistic for once, something that is undeniably his own. Because the use of metaphor in this story is blatantly obvious, the piece is symbolized by a baby because the project is "his baby."

Dave rushes his baby to his editor and is shocked to learn that other people have brought their babies in for consideration as well. The editor likes what he sees, but begins to make changes--you have to think of the audience, the sponsors, the pressure groups, you see. He pulls out one of the baby's eyes, yanks an arm off, and rips off its genitals. (Yes, really.) When Dave balks that the editor is destroying his concept of what the baby should look like, he reassembles it--but then rips the "heart" out of the project.

Dave is ushered out, the creative spark behind the baby now dead, but he's placated by the promise of work to come in the future. 

The underlying idea is interesting here, but the execution is so on-the-nose that it feels more like a creative's gripe session than a real examination of the commercialization of art. The casual gruesomeness of the baby's dismemberment has some shock and heft to it, but the artwork on this one just doesn't feel particularly inspired.

"The Threshold"

Scott Hampton, Mark Neece, and Phil Felix

Oh hey, a virtual reality story! Look, it was the late 80s; "The Threshold" even pre-empts that god-awful Lawnmower Man movie.

A scientist named Leo Marks perfects the virtual reality experience, and then promptly disappears after granting the patent to an amoral tech company. The virtual reality technology is mostly used by people who want to fuck celebrities, but a scientist at the company named Tom is up to some darker stuff. You see, Tom has been experimenting on a man's whose mind was "blown out" in the technology's trial phase; now Tom subjects him to ever-increasing experiences of pain to discover what lies beyond the threshold of maximum agony.

Since this is a Hellraiser story, you can guess what lies beyond pain, actually. A Cenobite arrives after Tom cranks the dial on his experiment--and the Cenobite is none other than Leo Marks! Marks then ushers Tom into the fold, where it seems he may be destined to become a Cenobite himself.

This is a fairly slight story, but it sticks to the themes and the virtual reality gag still has some novelty to it. Loved the scene of the guinea pig having to surf a lava flow in Hawaii.

"The Pleasures of Deception"

Philip Nutman, Bill Koeb, Gaspar Saladino

Now this art style is so of the era it gives me an ache in my chest! Dark, murky paints; inexplicable squares drawn around focal points; scratchy textures hinting at human blight--this is the stuff I'm craving.

"The Pleasures of Deception" is pure strain Hellraiser. When an artist named Davis tries to sell his latest macabre piece to a gallery, his work is rejected. His art has grown stale. What he needs is new inspiration, a new window into the complexities of desire and the flesh, so he gets his hand on a Lament Configuration. 

Solving the puzzle summons Pinhead and the High Priestess. (I believe this is the first time the movie Cenobites show up in the comic as characters.) They guide him through a series of disturbing, blood soaked lessons in how the flesh can be reshaped, taming the chaos of life and turning it into static art. Of course, like many Faustian bargains, this one comes with an unforeseen price: the artist is now cursed with seeing more of the world that he can really handle.

This is a perfect piece to close the issue. Overall, this is another strong entry in the run. You get a sense that they're still figuring out what a Hellraiser comic entails, but it does feel more unified than the first issue.

Hellraiser #1

I've been obsessed with Clive Barker's Hellraiser since I saw the first film back in the 80s, after getting my grandmother to rent it from the local grocery store. Truth be told, the first time I watched it I had to take it in two parts; it freaked me out so much that I had to stop the tape and continue the next day! After finishing it, though, I couldn't get it out of my head and I was soon on the trail of tracking down a copy of The Hellbound Heart...and all of Barker's other fiction.

To my amazement, one day (circa 1989) at the comic shop I saw a copy of Clive Barker's Hellraiser #1 on the new release wall. This was an anthology comic published by Epic, Marvel's "serious" imprint. The comic was deluxe for the era: perfect bound, thick paper, and chock full of painted art. I was in love.

I've managed to get a full collection of the Epic Hellraiser comics over the years, and now it's time to re-read them and give a full reevaluation. Are they a worthy addition to the "Hellraiser Mythos"? Or were they a cash-in that will ring hollow now that my days of youthful enthusiasm are at an end? Here's what the first issue summoned forth:

Erik Saltzgaber, John Bolton, Bill Oakley

"The Canons of Pain"

Things kick off with an extremely strong start with "The Canons of Pain." I am a sucker for Hellraiser stories with a historical gloss, and "The Canons of Pain" takes place during the Crusades. Our virtuous knight brings a Lament Configuration back from the Holy Land, but that's not the only burden he carries--it's clear that in this story the puzzle box is a metaphor for his war-induced post-traumatic stress. I also love the gimmick in play--once the puzzle is solved and the Cenobite is summoned, the medieval characters try their damnedest to fit its existence into their Catholic framework of demons, hell, and the justice of God. Overall, it's a banger of an opening story and I adore that you can still see the canvas grain in the art, just beautiful texture.

Sholly Fisch, Dan Spiegle, Carrie Spiegle, Sherilyn van Valkenburgh

"Dead Man's Hand"

"The Canons of Pain" isn't the only historical drag the first issue of Hellraiser has to offer: "Dead Man's Hand" gives us a slice of the Wild West. It's a classic premise--a stranger comes to town, looking to play some high-stakes poker, with a man's soul on the line. The stranger antes up a Lament Configuration, which everyone thinks is the big prize. It's not, of course. When his intended victim emerges as the winner of the card game, he gets the real prize--the stranger takes the box with him and rides out of town. It's a slight story, especially after the vicious tangle of the first tale, but it's a fun diversion nonetheless. 

Jan Strnad, Bernie Wrightson, Bill Wray, Michael Heisler

"The Warm Red"

"The Warm Red" is a story that has really stuck with me over the years; it's easily my favorite of the tales in the first issue. A manipulative real estate mogul gets a tip that some ailing farmland is going to be virtually priceless once Disney moves in and makes a new theme park nearby, so she swoops in ahead of the other vultures to buy the place off the dimwitted yokel who owns it. She not above using sex to blind him to the swindle, and one of the things I love about this story is that they resisted the temptation to make her a typical "sexy comic woman" of pneumatic proportions and instead portray her as older, oddly angular, but still seductive and real.

Of course, little does our swindler know that the dimwitted yokel has been cast from the Ed Gein mold--he's a sadist who was tortured at the hands of his pious mother, the perfect recipe for a beast to fall into the hands of a Cenobite. The Cenobite in this story is worth mentioning; his name is Face, due to the mask of skin stapled over the blood and muscle of his head, and this won't be his only appearance over the comic's run. 

Our yokel turns the tables on the businesswoman, drugging her into unconsciousness so her can cut her up and give her over to Hell's dominion.

When she awakes, mostly nude and tied spread-eagled to a gore-soaked mattress, the pain is about to begin. But remember, she's a wheeler and dealer--she makes Face an offer that feels like a true bargain. As she explains to the Cenobite, yon yokel only feeds a trickle of souls to Leviathan--and just think how the yield could be increased if someone savvy were at the helm! And so, our yokel and our manipulative femme fatale trade places; at the story's close, he's the one strapped down, fearfully awaiting the cruel application of the knife.

Ted McKeever, "Dance of the Fetus"

"Dance of the Fetus" is a mostly wordless story about a woman who has summoned a demon seemingly to give her the strength to commit suicide. Ted McKeever's idiosyncratic art style is a great fit for the themes of the piece; it's moody, glum, and frankly depressive. Once the demon slips inside the woman, he discovers a spanner in the works--the woman is pregnant. It is, apparently, against regulations for Hell to claim an innocent in the bargain, so the fetus is taken outside of the woman's body, where it floats up into the firmament to become a star. This is a great piece of comic work, but I have one caveat with it: it just doesn't feel like a Hellraiser story! And that's what makes it interesting within the context of the first issue--you can see how the team involved is feeling out the territory, finding the limits of what a comic called Clive Barker's Hellraiser can do without becoming alienated from itself.

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 81: Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? is a 2021 graphic novel that pairs historical true crime author Harold Schechter and Eric Powell, writer and illustrator of the monster punch-up comic The Goon. Jack and Kate revisit the horrifying true tale of the Butcher of Plainfield–this time, in comic book style.

What impact did this case have on pop culture, and why does it continue to fascinate us? How were the ‘90s a different country, and why did that country smell like grunge? Is the true crime genre Horrible Exploitation or Cool Exploitation? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of the podcast.

Capitalism: A Horror Story

To be fair and spell out one of my biases at the outset of this post on my thoughts about Jon Greenaway's Capitalism: A Horror Story, I've long been skeptical of the idea of "Gothic Marxism" for a reason this book does little to dispel: it seems like either an attempt to make Marxism "sexy" or to align someone's taste in entertainment to their avowed political ideology. Perhaps it tries its hand at both at the same time. The concept of Gothic Marxism often feels like a manifestation of the impulse to rebrand your politics as "cool" and to politically justify your fandom.

The book's vision of "the Gothic" mellows and becomes diffuse as it proceeds, eventually transforming into a catch-all category for the various horror films and texts it analyzes. However, Capitalism: A Horror Story doesn't excel at illustrating how the Gothic, or horror more generally, is necessarily a Marxist mode. This is an especially vexing omission in light of several authors under discussion being notably not radically left-wing in their politics yet somehow still existing under the book's political purview. For example, Ann Radcliffe was a champion of the middle-class bourgeoisie; the polite moralizing of her "Gothic Romances" and her status as an upwardly mobile middle-class woman whose ascendance was deeply entwined with the rise of capitalism evidences that. As another example, despite his belief in home rule for Ireland, Bram Stoker was a monarchist and supporter of the British Empire--two facets difficult to reconcile to claims of Marxist potential within Gothic authorship. In general, the linkage between "Gothic" and "Marxism" does not feel natural or self-evident.

The book's desire for Gothic Marxism to possess a transcendental, utopian political value also strikes me as odd and feels like something that can only be conjured by avoiding the material conditions that made the Gothic, and horror more generally, a viable commodity in terms of cultural production. This seems like something a Marxist account would want to explore in detail, but those concerns are largely left dangling. 

My biggest complaint with the book is stubborn insistence that horror is essentially a "hopeful" genre. I have taken a screenshot of a relevant paragraph so that you can judge the book's rhetorical position for yourself. This desire for a hopeful utopian turn does, in fact, cause problems when the book tries to use the cited fictions as political examples. You can read the ending of Dracula as hopeful--but it is hopeful about the continuation of British patriarchal power. Dracula features a collective that defeats evil--but it is a collective of elite imperial agents reinscribing Western superiority over foreign otherness. 

On the other hand, the ending of Frankenstein is hard to read as anything but Romantically bleak; it is far more apocalyptic than utopian in both tone and intent. 

However, the chapter on witches best illustrates the major flaw in the book's utopian argument: it dearly wants figures of monstrosity to be positive, nearly messianic, figures of resistance to capitalism, but as such it is ill-equipped to deal with the actual monstrosity of the figures it valorizes. Take its analysis of The VVitch as an example. It reads the witches in the film as liberatory and the ultimate event of Thomasin joining the coven as a political act, which may be, but it does not--and perhaps cannot--grapple with the fact that the witches in the film are actually figurations of evil by almost any standard. A baby is stolen and is mashed up into a flying ointment by one of the witches; another child is seduced in the woods and returned only so that he might die a horrible death in front of his helpless family. The climax of the film also problematizes the anti- capitalistic reading of its context. What is it that Thomasin is offered by the Devil? Butter, a pretty dress--she is offered commodities. I somehow think Marx wouldn't approve.

What this means is that many textual elements have to be ignored to get where the book intends to go. The same problem occurs in the offered reading of Frankenstein; the monster's body is a "site of politics," which again is certainly true, but that site of politics is fraught and contradictory because the monster puts its body to use by killing the innocent. I suspect this complication is uncommented on because that would countermand the hope of utopian change through the symbol and cypher of monstrosity. 

Capitalism: A Horror Story ultimately leaves the reader empty-handed. The utopian project of the book wants us to believe that there is revolutionary hope in monstrosity, in horror, in darkness--but even if that is an unmined possibility, what are we to do with that epiphany? As with other books of this style, there is no roadmap forward provided. 

This is particularly galling because in one of its chapters two horror film franchises are criticized for being unable to move beyond the ideological confines of neoliberalism to imagine something better. And yet, this presentation of Gothic Marxism similarly suffers from an inability to realize its utopic dreams in anything approaching concrete terms. How does an embrace of the monstrous usher in a much-deferred revolution? What praxis flows from the disturbed burial ground of the Gothic? Where does the "radical imagination" touted on the book's move from dark dream to attainable action? By the end of the book, questions such as these remain unanswered. 

Hoodtown

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 80: Hoodtown

Christa Faust’s 2004 novel Hoodtown takes the reader to an alternate universe Los Angeles, where crime drama is brewing in an underground culture populated by masked wrestlers. Skulls will be cracked and butts will be fingered when Jack and Kate get in the ring with this pile-driving mix of murder mystery, romance, and action.

Why is it important to be nice to your local exotico? Does everyone from New Jersey have a gym membership? Is an especially skanky carpet the ultimate heel? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of the podcast.

The Shadow on the Glass

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 79: The Shadow on the Glass

Outside of your hosts’ beloved Warhammer 40k novels, can tie-in game fiction be good? Jack and Kate aim to find out by discussing The Shadow on the Glass, a 2024 novel that pairs podcast-favorite author Jonathan L. Howard with the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.

Where are all of London’s fanciest spiritualists and psychics disappearing to? Can an A-team still be an A-team if the “a” stands for accountants and academics? Is there a bit of rugose cone inside all of us, really? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of the podcast.

Sudden Death

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 78: Sudden Death

Sex. Sacrilege. Murder. Tennis. This podcast is all about three out of those four things. Sudden Death, a 1978 novel by Peter Brennan (creator of TV shows Judge Judy and A Current Affair), marks the first time Jack and Kate are venturing into the world of sports thriller fiction. Buckle up, because underneath those tennis whites there’s a seething underbelly of drama and corruption. 

What could go wrong with a little nun-flavored sex work? Why does every character in this book have the most outrageous backstory ever? Will Jack and Kate learn anything about the sport central to this book? All these questions and more will be answered in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People. 

Old House of Fear

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 77: Old House of Fear

Russell Kirk is best known for his influential work of post-war political philosophy, The Conservative Mind. But his best-selling work–by far–was a 1961 gothic thriller The Old House of Fear. Jack and Kate wander through the mysterious isolated islands of Scotland on a hunt for Commie rabble-rousers, damsels in distress, and shaky real estate investments.

Does getting shot during the Spanish civil war give you psychic powers? Are Teddy Boys really that dangerous? Do Maltese people talk like that? What even are women? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People.

Joyland

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 76: Joyland

Stephen King’s 2013 novel Joyland is the author’s second effort for publisher Hard Case Crime. Jack and Kate are ready to track the clues in this story of murder, romance, and amusement park professionals.

What happens when the King of Horror gets a chance to be the Crime Writer Guy? Can the main character of his book ever achieve full carny acceptance? Why doesn’t the magical child at the center of the mystery infuriate your hosts? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People.

A House With Good Bones

 

T. Kingfisher's A House With Good Bones is not a novel I would recommend widely among my cohort; it has a lot going against it: I found the main character's quirky banter to be repellent, the plot involves the hated "a character discovers they are the heir to magical power, which they suddenly and conveniently wield to make things right" convention, and the horror is so light in this novel that it fulfills the milquetoast dreams of those who demand "cozy horror." 

Despite all that, there are some high spots. I was surprised that Jack Parsons and Aleister Crowley figure into the backstory, for example. That lent the book some surprising and interesting texture. Also, I can fully admit that even though a novel isn't for me, there are readers out there who would love this. Your maiden aunt who finds Stephen King too scary, but still wants to read horror, might get a real kick out of A House With Good Bones.

Live Girls

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 75: Live Girls

Ray Garton’s 1986 horror novel Live Girls may have the perfect bad book pitch: vampire hookers in seedy vintage Times Square. Jack and Kate travel back to a golden age of sleaze and encounter smokeshow bloodsucking strippers, donut-inspired dirty talk, and dancefloor remixes of “The Old Rugged Cross.”

What perverted compulsion makes a vampire turn the worst dudes in the world immortal? Why are nightclubs never, ever as cool as the ones in bad books? What do table tennis and the Anarchist’s Cookbook have in common? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People!

Nightmare House and Airport '77

Episode 74: Nightmare House and Airport '77

Once again, Jack and Kate trade reviews of books from their archives. This time around, Jack explores the terrifying mystery and romance of Rae Foley’s Nightmare House (1968) and Kate plunges straight into disaster with Airport 77 (1977).

Why is dealing marijuana a worse crime than murder? Does a nightmare dude make a nightmare house into a nightmare home? Whose dick will be compared to a tiny airline bottle of booze? Is Airport 77 the disco era counterpart to Moby Dick? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People. 

Not Good For Maidens

 

Tori Bovalino's Not Good For Maidens is a riff on Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market. In Not Good For Maidens, a young woman from a bloodline of witches is faced with the daunting task of venturing into the goblin market in search of her beloved aunt who may have fallen prey to the goblins' enticements. Running parallel to that story is the tale of a different aunt's tragic involvement with the goblin market in the past. Overall, Not Good For Maidens is a decent read, particularly for younger readers, but I do think it could have gone much harder, especially given the rich context of Rossetti's poem. The problem with Not Good For Maidens is that living up to the promise and power of Rossetti's poem is not a task many modern authors are really equipped to tackle. The best thing this novel can do is lead young readers to Rossetti's poetry.

As a riff on a classic Victorian poem, Not Good For Maidens is not the book I think it should be, which may well be an unfair criticism, but I think comparison between the novel and Rossetti's poem is inevitable given the context. To my mind, Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market is a poem of seductive horrors. In contrast, Bovalino's novel is planted too firmly in the young adult "urban fantasy" mode, and any seduction is in short supply within its pages. Though there is horrific content in it, Not Good For Maidens soft-pedals where it should attempt to disturb and challenge the reader. The form of the novel also detracts from its themes; the prose needs to be more seductive, artful, and brimming with monstrous excess, and the words need to carry more sexual threat. Without that, Not Good For Maidens feels pale and fainting in comparison to the strenuous ardor of Rossetti's poem.

Case in point, the protagonist is notably asexual, so the potential to do something interesting by juxtaposing the goblin market's enticements against her lack of desire certainly exists--but that element isn't explored in any depth. Similarly, the protagonist's strange, semi-sensual fixation on her aunt doesn't reach the fevered pitch of the powerful and unnameable force of sisterly love in Rossetti's work.

I also question the author's word choice at various points. Too often, the protagonist is "scampering" away in terror. Scampering? That's like saying someone frolicked in dread.

I know that a considered focus on world-building is often a great curse upon all nations, but the world-building in Not Good For Maidens would benefit from narrative clarification or revision because I'm not sure it makes sense. The goblin market seems to be a known quantity (even the British government is aware of it and when people re-emerge from the market with strange injuries and bearing stranger curses, people know to take its victims to a group of witches in York that can help them), but the American protagonist has somehow never heard of it? Despite the fact that her family members are the witches who help people recover from goblin wounds in York?

The way the goblin market and its denizens are portrayed feels unreal, as opposed to fantastical or even dream-like, which works against the book's themes, its characterization, and its coherency. If the goblin market were real and known, there would be YouTubers and TikTokers making crass videos about it. But in the fictive world the novel presents, knowledge of market's existence is vague and often feels like it comes into focus only at the narrative's convenience, making the stakes of Not Good For Maidens feel flimsy and inconsequential as a result.