Synopses & Reviews
It haunts us; it stalks us; it shapes us. It creeps into our dreams and, if we allow it, can plague our ponderings of the future. The same monsters that lived under our childhood beds can reappear, alive and toothsome, in our adult lives. And perhaps most frightening of all: without reason or apology, one persons fancy is another persons torment. Granta 117 takes a stab at understanding the phenomenon that is horror.
With award-winning writing, Granta has illuminated the most complex issues of modern life. In 117, Stephen King writes of a retired judge who pays repeated visits to a patch of sand capable of predicting human mortality. Don DeLillo climbs into the head a moviegoer-turned-stalker. Joy Williams writes of a father with a grown son even stranger and less stable than he suspects. Rajesh Parameswaran presents us with a tiger who narrates its own escape from a zoo and its subsequent terrorizing of a neighborhood, while Daniel Alarcon explores the phenomenon of staged, high-camp blood baths. And Mark Doty ruminates on a close encounter between Walt Whitman and Bram Stoker. Also new work by Paul Auster, Will Self, and Julie Otsuka.
Come along. Hold tight. Get scared
Review
"Just in time for Halloween, Granta, the London-based quarterly, calls on the American master of horror, Stephen King, to headline a new issue devoted to horror that's more literary than gory, yet still chilling and at times, bloody."
-- USA Today
"Looking for something a little more cerebral this Halloween than underwear models with fangs? You cant do better than the new issue of Granta: Horror.” The 117th volume of the British literary journal offers a bone-chilling selection of fiction and nonfiction."
-- The Washington Post
Synopsis
It haunts us; it stalks us; it shapes defining moments in our past. It creeps into our dreams and, if we allow it, can plague our ponderings of the future. The same scenarios that draw us to the thrill of the movie theater can rob us of the ability to flee from harm’s way. The same monsters’ that lived under our childhood beds can reappear, alive and toothsome, in our adult lives. And perhaps most frightening of all: without reason or apology, one person’s fancy is another person’s torment. Granta 117 takes a stab at understanding the phenomenon that is horror.
With award-winning reportage, memoir and fiction, Granta has illuminated the most complex issues of modern life through the refractory light of literature. In Rajesh Parameswaran’s short story, a tiger escapes from the zoo and narrates its adventures as it terrorizes a neighbourhood. Nic Dunlop recounts his chance meeting with a Cambodian mass-murderer. Daniel Alarcon explores the phenomenon of staged blood baths. Mark Doty ruminates on a close encounter between Walt Whitman and Bram Stoker. There’s also new fiction by Alice Munro, Joy Williams, Julie Otsuka, and Don DeLillo.
Come along. Hold tight. Get scared
About the Author
John Freemans criticism has appeared in more than 200 newspapers around the world, including the Guardian, the Independent, The Times and the Wall Street Journal. Between 2006 and 2008, he served as president of the National Book Critics Circle. His first book, THE TYRANNY OF EMAIL, was published in October by Scribner in the US and Text in Australia.