I’ve been making my way through Thomas Ligotti’s collection of short stories “Songs of a Dead Dreamer” and his other collection “Grimscribe.” He’s a hero of the weird horror community and generally a cult figure in modern literature. I’ve only read a handful of his stories so far, but he reminds me a lot of Laird Barron — though I believe Ligotti was on the scene well before him. He messes with reality as comfortably as Denis Johnson but, like Barron, he keeps it from getting too lyrical and fever-dream ish. Things always seem to be horrifically clear, as to the visuals and situations, even if you don’t really know what’s happening beneath the surface. So far, it seems, Ligotti also pulls no punches. Things don’t end happily, and they don’t end the way you’d expect either. I originally was drawn to him when he came up in a conversation in the writers’ room I work in, in regards to True Detective. Allegedly, Pizzolato lifted integral sections from Ligotti’s non-fiction work and dumped them right into the mouths of his characters (Rust Cohle especially) — there’s been controversy over whether it qualifies as plagiarism ever since. But what more drew me to Ligotti was that our showrunner was so horrified (in a good way) of his work — that he “can’t even bring himself to read a lot of his work now that he has kids, and now that the world is so fucked up.” Well, that was enough for me!
So far, my favorite story has been “Alice’s Last Adventure” which is about an ageing, alcoholic author who came to fame (and perhaps is entirely defined by) a series of children’s books she wrote — and the odd things she starts to experience. It is indeed creepy and treads the uncanny valley and delivers some awesome horror. But it is also a totally brilliant character study. And to me, the horror was a nice reflection of her psyche but I only enjoyed the scares because they reflected her character. The woman’s voice, as narrator, is so entirely authentic its almost unsettling — that an author can create this character so wholly and then torture her in the unique way that he does. I’m beginning to think that this is why Ligotti is known as an underground great. Because, to him, the character and voice of the story is the source of any horror the story may later come to be known for…