"I don't scare easily," said Clive Barker to a journalist in 1990, while promoting his then brand-new novel The Great and Secret Show. Barker continued: "But I'm terrified of two things. One is the general condition of being flesh and blood. Of minds to madness and flesh to wounding. The other is banality. My characters are constantly escaping from banality." That quote struck me back then and it still strikes me today. The great thing about Barker is that he's so in tune to his own wavelength; he knows just what and why he's writing and what he wants his readers to experience, and he's eager to talk about it too.
And that's just what Clive Barker's Shadows in Eden (Underwood-Miller, Oct 1991) gives us. An anthology of interviews, discussions, reviews, quotes, and endless illustrations, it's a beautifully produced hardcover. At 450+ pages, this is Barker unadulterated, talking at length about his art, his influences, and anything else he might want to expound upon. Shadows covers the gamut of his early career: his plays (and minor forays into stage acting), stories, novels, movies, and comics. I can hardly overstate its importance for the Barker fan. I bought this lovely title from the specialty-press Underwood-Miller as soon as it was published, and have happily revisited it for 25 years.
"I was very aware that if I was going to rise I was going to have to be a proselytizer for my work. I'm aware that many writers are actively reluctant to do that. They don't like to do public readings, they don't like to do television and so on... I have, no pun intended, something of the carnival barker in me."
Disturbingly erotic yet humorous front/endpiece art by Stephen Player.
Shadows in Eden is littered with Barker's sketches in the margins and rough drafts of paintings, some representative of characters and scenes from his fiction, others simply unlimbered escapees from his fevered brain. Some years ago I was waited on by a bartender who had a tattoo of one of these sketches and I said as she served me my beer, "Hey, that's a Clive Barker!" She told me I was literally the only person who'd ever recognized it.
Who doesn't love seeing their favorite writer's handwritten manuscripts?! Critical essays are also included, exposing the metaphors and subtleties—and yes, when necessary, the weaknesses—of Barker's literary output. Alas, Shadows doesn't include anything about Barker's magnum opus Imajica, since that novel was published pretty much concurrently.
Creepy art—Brother Frank?—and Ramsey Campbell's original introduction to the first editions of the Books of Blood. I'm still not sure what a Balaclava is and now I don't even want to find out, I enjoy the tantalizing mystery of it.
Of course: the first time I ever heard the word "meme" and learned what it was was reading this conversation between Barker and Neil Gaiman. They talk comics and how, in the late '80s and early '90s, they were rather like twins, figuratively and literally. And literarily. (Gaiman doesn't get the definition of meme exactly right, but ah well, the point is made.)
Movies: Hellraiser and more are featured. Nightbreed was going into production as Shadows of Eden was being put together, so it was cool to see some behind-the-scenes goodies. Here Barker's with illustrator icon Ralph McQuarrie. And then there's some stuff on, uh, Rawhead Rex.
The great Lisa Tuttle, who'd been featured with Barker in Night Visions III, contributes this wonderful piece in which she and Clive discuss Cabal and all manner of horror and art. "Whenever Clive and I have met to discuss horror, writing, fantasy and similar topics—whether on a public platform, or in private—I've always enjoyed it. More than enjoyed it: found it exhilarating. There's an intellectual rapport, so that even though we don't agree about everything, we're on the same wavelengths, shortcuts can be taken, intuitive leaps made; we spark responses in each other. I find what he has to say invariably interesting, and often illuminating, not only about his work, but about my own, as well as about art and life in general."
A treat from the Barker scrapbook! My God I can't imagine a bigger treat than sharing a bottle with Barker and discussing Books of Blood. Except maybe sharing a bottle with Barker and King and discussing Books of Blood (see below).
You'll recognize lots of the journalists and writers included: J.G. Ballard, Douglas E. Winter, Dennis Etchison, Kim Newman, Philip Nutman, Stanley Wiater, and oh yeah good ol' Steve King, whose piece "You Are Here Because You Want the Real Thing" opens Shadows. He recalls the first time he heard the name "Clive Barker" (New Haven World Fantasy Convention 1983, "drunk, drunk" as he puts it) and mused, since there was so much talk about him being a real game-changer, on the famous quote about Bruce Springsteen back in the mid-1970s, "I have seen the future of rock'n'roll, and his name is Bruce Springsteen." (King—drunk, drunk—misremembers and misattributes the quote, according it to Rolling Stone mag founder Jan Wenner. Not so but ah well, the point is made.) Of Barker King says: "And, oh my God, can the man write. No matter how gruesome the material, you are witched into the story, hooked, and then propelled onward."
My goodness what a perfect image for Barker's work. Jesus wept.
When I first read Horror: 100 Best Books it was a revelation, and caused me to search out and read Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness, Wagner's In a Lonely Place, Marasco's Burnt Offerings, Klein's The Ceremonies, as well as a handful of others that have sat on my shelf unread in the many years since. That'll happen. Although it's a bit disconcertingly diverse, it is still an indispensable guide for the horror fiction fan as a reference book. It may be over 20 years old - yes, there is a second volume - but you still need it. I finally actually bought a used copy and it fits my parameters here well.
Jones and Newman are both are well-known horror scribes and editors, Jones for his Best New Horror anthology series and Newman for my personal favorite book on horror film, Nightmare Movies. It may have been better had they themselves chosen the 100 best books, rather than enlisting various horror fiction authors, present and past, to choose their favorites. Authors contribute an essay on their choice. Joe Lansdale goes for Ray Bradbury's The October Country - honestly, I would have never guessed. Harlan Ellison on Clark Ashton Smith! T.E.D. Klein on Machen! Poe on Hawthorne! Uh, Guy N. Smith on Charles L. Grant? Don't think I'm going to delve into Marlowe's Dr. Faustus any time soon, but thanks anyway, Clive Barker. The Gothic moldy-oldies of the 19th century are are present and accounted for: The Monk, The Mysteries of Udolpho,Melmoth the Wanderer.
It's a bit UK-heavy, and features a Lovecraft collection you won't find Stateside, Cry Horror, nor will you easily find Ramsey Campbell's Dark Feasts, Michael Bishop's Who Made Stevie Crye?, or Nigel Kneale's Quatermas series that I've been looking for since I first read Best Books in the early '90s. My major quibble is that many of the specific titles chosen are unavailable anywhere, except as expensive collector's editions.
As for the essays themselves, I found David J. Schow's piece on All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By particularly insightful; Peter Straub's words on The Shining particularly ass-kissy; Al Sarrantonio's insights into 'Salem's Lot virtually absent; Stephen King's into Burnt Offerings, debatable. Then Craig Spector on Deathbird Stories correctly and acppropriately notes both its power and its dated "hipness" while Edward Bryant nails Song of Kali's nightmare precision.
Non-disputable classics like Dracula, Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, Island of Dr. Moreau, Ghost Stories of Antiquary, Haunting of Hill House, etc., are duly included. More surprising are modern fiction titles like John Gardner's Grendel and Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird, or literary classics like Macbeth, Heart of Darkness, Northanger Abbey, and The Trial, as well as dystopian 1960s SF novels like John Brunner's The Sheep Look Up and J.G. Ballard's The Crystal World.
There are plenty of spoilers in these essays, so tread carefully. The Recommended Reading list included at the end is amazing and overwhelming and, ultimately, kind of disheartening. I am never, never, ever, ever,gonna be able to read all them books. Damn and damn again.
