The American writer and thinker Victoria Nelson is justly revered by afficionados of the Weird for The Secret Life of Puppets and its follow-up Gothicka. Both are masterful explorations the supernatural as it subsists in the "sub-Zeitgeist" of the modern secular West. In 2021, Strange Attractor Press released Neighbor George, Nelson's first novel. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss this gothic anti-romance with a mind to seeing how it contributes to Nelson's overall project of acquainting us with the eldritch undercurrents of contemporary life.
Click here (https://www.supernormalfestival.co.uk) for more information on the Supernormal Festival, Aug 12-14, in Oxfordshire, England.
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References
Victoria Nelson, Neighbor George (http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/neighbor-george/#:~:text=Set%20in%20a%20haunted%20northern,comic%20companion%20tale%2C%20Bolinas%20Venus%2C)
Victoria Nelson, The Secret Life of Puppets (https://bookshop.org/books/the-secret-life-of-puppets/9780674012448)
Victoria Nelson, Gothicka (https://victorianelson.net/gothicka-vampire-heroes-human-gods-and-the-new-supernatural/)
Wendy Lesser (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Lesser), American critic
Ward Sutton Onion cartoons (https://www.theonion.com/queasy-on-the-eyes-1849035193)
Extension (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extension_(metaphysics)), metaphysical concept
Terry Castle, The Female Thermometer (https://bookshop.org/books/the-female-thermometer-eighteenth-century-culture-and-the-invention-of-the-uncanny/9780195080988)
Cessation of Miracles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessationism_versus_continuationism), theological belief
E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande (https://bookshop.org/books/witchcraft-oracles-and-magic-among-the-azande-9780198740292/9780198740292)
Greg Anderson, “Retrieving the Lost Worlds of the Past: A Case for the Ontological Turn” (https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/120/3/787/19855?login=true)
Orcus Grotto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardens_of_Bomarzo), sculpture
Margaret Atwood, The Edible Woman (https://bookshop.org/books/the-edible-woman/9780385491068)
Nathalie Cooke, [Margaret Atwood: A Biography](https://www.google.com/books/edition/MargaretAtwood/zUBaAAAAMAAJ?hl=en)_
Weird Studies, Episode 96 on Beauty and the Beast (https://www.weirdstudies.com/96)
M. C. Richards, “Wrestling with the Daemonic” (https://bookshop.org/books/the-crossing-point-poems/9780819560292)