Despite being able to Google any and all topics at any and all times, I still cherish having my own nonfiction collection of
horror reference books. I've always been interested in author biographies and critical appreciations of the genre, especially for the general reader and not (necessarily) the literary academic. While my shelf of these titles pales in comparison to my shelves of actual horror fiction, this latest addition to my library deserves a post of its own.
Living in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media (Da Capo Press oversize paperback, 1983) is virtually a one-stop shop for most of your horror literacy requirements. Author Les Daniels (1943-2011) made his bones in the early Seventies when he published Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, one of the very first books on the topic. He gained a reputation as a serious, but not stuffy, chronicler of the overlooked, the forgotten, the thrown-away popular enjoyments of the past. (Hmm, sounds familiar...)
Daniels continued to write about comic books, with histories of Superman, Wonder Woman, and others following later. As his favorites had been the notorious EC horror comics of the Fifties, it's no wonder that he soon turned his attention to that also much-maligned genre in toto. We should be glad he did, because he almost effortlessly draws a line from Greek mythology, Biblical mystery plays, epic poetry, and proto Gothic literature to early American religious sermons, and then more recognizable horror fare like The Monk, Frankenstein, Varney the Vampyre, Dracula, Poe, Bierce, Washington Irving, et. al.
But of course he's practically just getting started. The Order of the Golden Dawn, Weird Tales,
the Lovecraft circle, "Inner Sanctum," Universal monster movies, Boris Karloff, William
Gaines, Richard Matheson, Rod Serling, Hammer flicks, even a brief consideration of the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and Alice Cooper in the context of psychological horror and nihilism—all come
under his discerning eye and fluid pen. Daniels also generously included
several classic short stories to serve as markers of their era, from
Poe, M.R. James, Machen and more, including a solid-gold personal fave-rave, Matheson's "Blood Son."
I haven't even mentioned the
lovely b&w art that accompanies the text, vintage illustrations from down
the ages,woodcuts, iconic movie stills, comic and magazines covers (but nary a single, believe it or not, actual
book cover) even a full-length EC Comics story. I
can't tell you how excited I was to learn about Irish artist
Harry Clarke's Art Nouveau-inspired drawings for Poe's dreadful tales (above).
As for "modern" horror, Daniels seems almost dismissive of both film adaptations of
Rosemary's Baby and
The Exorcist,
which maybe made sense back then but today I find inexplicable: those
two movies are, along with their base novels, the tent poles of modern
horror entertainment. Thomas Tryon gets a mention of a paragraph, as
does non-horror author John Fowles, and a few other "contemporary"
writers, but Daniels wrote this book prior to Stephen King's ascension and
domination of even the very concept of "horror." Daniels himself would
start to publish his own horror novels, a historical series about the
vampire
Don Sebastian de Villanueva, in the ensuing years. The final words are about the monster cereals of the Seventies, perhaps an ignominious end to such a towering work, alas...
Obviously a precursor to King's chummy horror/Cold War kid memoir
Danse Macabre from 1981,
Living in Fear is a reference work at heart. I think anyone attempting to read it from cover to cover would simply
get bogged down by the sheer weight and heft of Daniels' approach. You
may be thinking now that this isn't the type of book you read
straight through, and you'd be right.
Indeed, I see many fans online make this mistake with Danse, and then give up in frustration. I was introduced to King's book in 19-effing-86 and I still don't think I've read it in its entirety. Books like these are to nosh and nibble at, appetizers and hors d'oeuvres
for the brain. It is something to keep on your
shelf and when you run across some horror blank spot and you think, What
did ol' Les Daniels have to say about "The Night Stalker"? Or Creepy magazine? Or Robert Bloch? Think how ridiculous it'd be if you tried to eat an entire Thanksgiving dinner spread all by yourself. No, you help yourself
to a serving, go back for seconds later, eat some leftovers for a
midnight snack or the day after.
I'll be honest: Daniels writes with such casual authority, from such a wellspring of
knowledge and experience, in such clear prose, that I found myself
dealing with pangs of jealousy as I read. While I
knew of many of
the topics and names and stories contained herein, it is the brisk aplomb with which Daniels sets down his insights that impressed me most mightily. His ability
to synthesize and summarize decades upon decades of fearsome
entertainments, to move from classic literature to pulp fiction, from
silent film to the Seventies cinematic excesses, from radio to
television and magazines, is nothing short of magnificent.
Striking a path
between the academic and the aficionado, Daniels has offered up a clear, deep well
to drink from. Despite it being almost half a century old, Living in Fear provides so much context, insight, enthusiasm, and appreciation for the origins of, and the genre as a whole, that it belongs in every serious horror and pop culture fan's library.