We spent the day at Dunwich (again). No exploring this time — just reading on the beach. I’ve been popping into every second-hand bookshop in Suffolk this week, trying to scratch an itch, but I think the real itch is — now that Egress is finished — I’m having serious thoughts about book #2.
I’m thinking it’ll just be called “Xenogothic” — a proper statement about why I think the only way to be Goth in the 21st century is to plunder the outsides of the Gothic’s tired old boundaries.
I’m not sure how I’m going to structure things yet but I’m still thinking a lot about the American West and the playful but more socially realist multiplicity of the American Gothic (relative to its UK Jekyll-and-Hyde counterpart).
There’s a chapter on the West in Egress already but I still have so much to say about it, so today I’ve been reading the collected short stories of Tennessee Williams and I even dipped into a bit of Mark Twain. I need to get this out my system and then get back to what I love about UK Goths.
Other thoughts had in Dunwich: why would you build two nuclear power stations — and propose a third — that are visible from a stretch of coast most famous for the fact a whole city was quickly destroyed by the sea there?
Tempting fate a bit, surely… The energy industry’s death drive writ large!
