Shadows, Long and
Dark
by Bob Freeman
by Bob Freeman
goth·ic - Pronunciation: 'gä-thik - Date: 1591:
(often not capitalized) of or relating to a style of fiction characterized by
the use of desolate or remote settings and macabre, mysterious, or violent
incidents
ro·mance - Pronunciation: rO-'man(t)s - Date:
14th century: (1) : a medieval tale based on legend, chivalric love and
adventure, or the supernatural (2) : a prose narrative treating imaginary
characters involved in events remote in time or place and usually heroic,
adventurous, or mysterious (3) : a love story b : a class of such literature
In an interview some time back, I was asked to describe my
novel, Shadows Over Somerset, in a single
sentence and I referred to it as a “Gothic Romance with testosterone”. I
could tell immediately that the interviewer was put off by this description,
but I stand by it, and proudly so.
I’ve never understood the disdain most people feel for the
Gothic Romance sub-genre. It has been the redheaded stepchild of horror since
before I was born. Truth be told, some of the greatest horror novels I’ve ever
read fall under the Gothic Romance umbrella… The Haunting of Hill House by
Shirley Jackson is a prime example. The Gothic Romance flourished in the late
18th and early 19th century in Great Britain. Focusing on mysteries that often
involved the supernatural, the Gothic Romance was heavily tinged with horror,
and they were usually set against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and
haunted castles.
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole was the forerunner of the type, which
included the works of Ann Radcliffe , Matthew Gregory Lewis , and Charles R.
Maturin , not to mention the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley . These works
usually concerned themselves with spirited young women, either governesses or
new brides, who go to live in large gloomy mansions populated by peculiar
servants and precocious children and presided over by darkly handsome men with
mysterious pasts, but look to Bram Stoker’s Dracula and its decidedly gothic
overtones on how the themes could be explored with even more vigor…
As a kid, reading my way through the stacks of our small town's
public library, I discovered writers like Mary Stewart and Virginia Holt, Anya
Seton and Phyllis Whitney. They, and others like them, were very influential
and inspiring, and they filled my imagination with a sense of wonder and
enchantment... and a sense of dread whenever a fog settled in and the wind
howled in a particular way.
But more importantly, to me anyway, was Dan Curtis, who explored
the genre in the late-sixties and seventies, and was quite successful with it,
in television. Dark Shadows and
his masterful retelling of Dracula, with the spectacular Jack Palance as the cursed
Prince Vlad, were cornerstones of what Gothic Romance could be.
A wealth of beautiful prose and horrifying verse have been
penned within this proud genre, and I would be proud to have Shadows Over Somerset considered
among their ranks.
