While a main goal of this blog is to highlight works that I find worthwhile, literature or otherwise, I am also interested in sharing my thoughts on the concept of horror itself: what it means to me and how I came to appreciate it. That being said, I've decided to begin by telling you about the moment that led me here.
The artwork made the book.
I couldn't have been any older than six when I fell in love with horror, and it had everything to do with the woman above. My brother had checked the book out of our school's library and I remember us sitting on my bed when we came to this picture. The face alone was unsettling enough, but what really got me was finding a long strand of dark hair nestled between the pages. That was the only time I've ever thrown a book.
My best guess is the hair belonged to the last person to check the book out, but it still terrified me. It made the story seem real, more tangible somehow. For a long moment I refused to place my feet on the floor, knowing somewhere in my childish mind that the woman was there in my room waiting for me. Then something strange happened: I felt a tinge of curiosity and stepped from the bed. I crossed the room and retrieved the book from the floor, turning back to page 30, back to the image of the woman who was dead but not really. I studied the picture, the strand of dark hair now missing, absent as if it had never been there at all. I continued to look at the woman, trying to determine what it was about this image that terrified me. I didn't realize it then, but I wanted to find out how this artist had created something so visceral, so utterly affecting that it made an impact on me. Years later, upon discovering a certain Mr. Lovecraft, I realized that the feeling I'd had as a child could be replicated with words, and that was a powerful moment for me.
But perhaps that's a story for another time.