Municipal Gothic

Description

“I only ever do forewords for things I adore. I adore this book.” – David Southwell, Hookland Guide

“Newman gives the familiar spectre of the English ghost story a spring in its step with his dry wit, deft formal experiments and canny sense of the uncanny” – Will Wiles, author of The Last Blade Priest

“Municipal Gothic is a wonderful collection of weird tales that are at times wryly amusing, at others formally inventive – but always deliciously creepy and depicting the decrepit heart of a fly-blown England.” – Edward Parnell, author of Ghostland

“Like the rest of the collection [‘Modern Buildings in Wessex’] is funny and genuinely chilling in places, stepping back from the obvious in the manner of Robert Aickman and letting your imagination do its worst.” – John Grindrod, author of Concretopia and Outskirts

Council estates, motorway underpasses, bypass hotels, concrete cathedrals and run-down pubs. Places we all know, that we see where we live in suburbs and towns. Why shouldn’t they be haunted? In these thirteen stories you’ll meet a demonic black dog tasked with administering a lineal curse in the age of sperm donation, a witch’s familiar forced to live off fried chicken bones, an architect whose buildings can drive you mad, headless villains and more. It includes the acclaimed ‘Modern Buildings in Wessex’ and ‘An Oral History of the Greater London Exorcism Authority’, both of which put the ghost story into new forms. Ray Newman grew up on a council estate in Somerset and has never really got over the experience. His first novel, The Grave Digger’s Boy, was published by Bloodhound Books in 2019. He lives in Bristol.