In literary terms, Gothic typically refers to that frame of mind and soul that embraces the strange, the mysterious, and the irrational, specifically terror. Gothic novels are often set in the dark and wild. This is what one encounters in Andrew Klavan's most recent novel.
As I consider this novel written for a popular audience, there are no empty cliches for Klavan. Nightmare City is a pulse pounding, page turning, plot twisting engaging work that will be enjoyed by all who love a rich suspenseful novel. This is not a mere bump-in-the-night, goose bump, chills producing novel; rather Nightmare City has the capacity to move the soul toward reflection. The reality of death and evil are all around us and even within us. While there is the true, the good, and the beautiful received with joy, sometimes the true and good are met in the dark. Ignoring evil does not make it vanish. In addition to our contemporary culture being taken with dystopian fiction, we seem also to be fascinated with zombies and vampires. It has been said that vampires are about sex and zombies are about death. Just a cursory knowledge of graphic novel series and the television show, The Walking Dead, one is struck by the pervasive nihilism. Klavan gives us suspense without despair, fear without hopelessness, and lessons about courage and morality in the midst of human mortality.
Author, Russell Kirk, writing of his own ghost stories says, "What I have attempted, rather, are experiments in the moral imagination. Readers will encounter elements of parable and fable...literary naturalism is not the only path to apprehension of reality. All-important literature has some ethical end; and the tale of the preternatural...can be an instrument for the recovery of moral order." The key here is the ethical end toward which great literature often aims, but has been rejected in our own moment. Klavan is very counter cultural in this regard.
Just as in the natural order there are laws that must be yielded to, in "ghost stories" there is a parallel principle within the supernatural order. These accompanying laws have equally real results when adhered to or when dismissed. Again Kirk, "The better uncanny stories are underlain by healthy concept of the character of evil. Defying nature, the necromancer conjures up what ought not to rise again this side of Judgment Day. But these dark powers do not rule the universe: by bell, book, and candle, symbolically at least, we can push them down under."
It is so important to stress here, for the reader of this blog that the realities these stories in general, and Nightmare City in particular, speak of are not merely symbolic or allegorical, as it is the case that a symbol (by the nature of being a symbol) points to or hints at a reality beyond itself. In other words, an allegory is parallel to something that is other than itself. If this is not the case, then allegories and symbols merely refer to other symbols and allegories, and the mirror maze becomes a prison.
Additionally, Russell Kirk gives further insight into another value of the "ghost tale" which is also true of liberal arts grounded in fine letters. "The story of the supernatural or mystical can disclose aspects of human conduct and human longing to which the positivistic psychologist has blinded himself." The human heart longs for "transcendent perception" and "arcane truths about good and evil" that answers questions we have about the meaning and truth of things. Kirk adds, "as a literary form, then, the uncanny tale can be a means for expressing truths enchantingly." Many are drawn to this literary genre as it affirms what most of us know, and that is the truth that our senses are not capable of apprehending all that was, is, or will be. While the 'scientists' or 'materialists' will not acknowledge it, 'nature' is something more than mere fleshly sensation, and that something may lie above human nature, and something below it–-why, the divine and the diabolical rise up again in serious literature."
So the scientists, mechanists, or fundamentalist who resists these tales of transcendence, and the eerie novels such as Nightmare City should more resist the ignorant order that loses touch of the ultimate reality to which these parables are set next to and offer a glimpse into. It is our narrow, shallow, and hollow view of reality that should be resisted by those of us drawn to the dark, scary, otherworldly and mysterious tales such as these that point us to what is.
The synopsis of Nightmare City is "Tom Harding only wants the truth. But the truth is becoming more dangerous with every passing minute. As a reporter for his high school newspaper, Tom Harding was tracking the best story of his life—when, suddenly, his life turned very, very weird. He woke up one morning to find his house empty . . . his street empty . . . his whole town empty . . . empty except for an eerie, creeping fog—and whatever creatures were slowly moving toward him through the fog. Now Tom’s once-ordinary world has become something out of a horror movie. How did it happen? Is it real? Is he dreaming? Has there been a zombie apocalypse? Has he died and gone to hell? Tom is a good reporter—he knows how to look for answers—but no one has ever covered a story like this before. With the fog closing in and the hungry creatures of the fog surrounding him, he has only a few hours to find out how he lost the world he knew. In this bizarre universe nothing is what it seems and everything—including Tom’s life—hangs in the balance."
Klavan has said in more than one interview that his ideas often begin with a "what if question." Human life is filled with mystery and the “what if” calls us beyond ourselves toward something else. Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Williams, Ray Bradbury, and Russell Kirk are grand writers who blend both moral and Gothic imagination. With a keen eye for action and adventure, Klavan joins their ranks.