Two years ago, there was some debate about whether the acclaimed HBO Mystery series "True Detective" had plagiarized from an essay written by Thomas Ligotti. While the charge of theft was never settled (though, in the opinion of this writer, HBO is not guilty), this suddenly alerted the world to the existence of a mysterious, reclusive horror writer, who had been quietly publishing masterpieces for almost 30 years. Penguin Books, then republishing two collections of his work, only raised more question, as people everywhere started to ask, “Who the hell is Thomas Ligotti?”
It’s a question we should have been asking a lot sooner. Influenced by Edgar Allen Poe, Henry James, H.P. Lovecraft and David Lynch, as well as many others, Thomas Ligotti is a horror short story writer, and has not received the same acclaim as his contemporaries such as Stephen King, who primarily writes novels. Short stories are -- by definition -- short, and are sometimes hard for large companies to sell. However, they also provide a perfect medium for someone who wants to pack a whole lot of scares into a small number of pages.
Ligotti’s first collection of short stories, " Songs of a Dead Dreamer ," only sold 300 copies when it was released in 1989, despite critical acclaim and praise. It was his second collection, "Grimscribe," which started to sell and warranted a republishing of his first collection, as well as earning him enough money to write three more collections, " Noctuary ," "Teatro Grotesco," (my personal favorite!), and "My Work Is Not Yet Done a revenge fantasy/satire of corporate America which briefly generated movie buzz. Ligotti has put forth one final book since the aforementioned essay "True Detective" which HBO was accused of stealing from. This essay, "Conspiracy Against the Human Race ," is an accessible, anti-natalist and nihilistic manifesto, which argues through a series of facts and opinions that humanity should end itself. How good you think it is really depends on how closely your views align with Ligotti’s, but it’s hard to deny the ambition attached to a project bound to stir so much controversy.
While his non-fiction may have stirred the pot and gotten him attention, his true power lies in short stories and recordings of dreams. Combining a Kafka-esque absurdity with a dream-like fluidity, these short prose works are best at evoking and maintaining a sense of unease and anxiety. While slasher movies and ghost stories often rely on sudden surprises or a big twist at the end, no such gratification arrives at the end of, say “Teatro Grotesco” or “Tsalal.”
Ligotti simply sticks the reader into a world that doesn’t make sense, peopled by uncanny horrors and grotesqueries, doesn’t explain the rules, and then leaves them there, stuck in a nightmare. Some storytellers would try and bring the terror to an end in service of the story -- for example, have Norman Bates get arrested, or have the character realize they’re crazy and have imagined everything. This is never the case in Ligotti’s short fiction pieces. While it’s quite possible his characters are insane, or that the horrors he depicts are made short work of by the military as soon as the story ends, that’s not the scary part. What’s truly unnerving is that these ideas and beings can exist, nascent either in our minds or our familiar everyday surroundings. One of his stories, “The Red Tower” is just a dude staring at a tower for eight pages, and yet it will still manages to make you scream, laugh, or throw-up -- maybe a combination of the three.
It is my hope in writing this that some horror aficionados will read this and be enticed to buy or rent a copy of one of Ligotti’s many fantastic works. He is a profoundly talented writer who does not get enough credit or recognition from a world that is perhaps too scared to admit he’s not just nuts.
Below, are links to his books in the order I suggest reading them. I hope this piece finds you well, and ready to be scared!
