Writing horror and the body : the fiction of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Anne Rice /

In this five-chapter study of some manners of "the embodied self" that are emblematic of contemporary anxieties, Badley emphasizes the shifting boundaries of the post-Freudian body and its "archetypal projections." The author examines King's early work against some characteristics of oral culture; here the "sound track" and "agonistic" aspects of his fictions stand out. In another chapter on the theme of death and King's attraction to "gendered issues," Badley too insistently sees King's writing as parabolic. Barker's underlying ideas and literary dimensions in the Books of Blood (1984)--body as metaphor "to explore the technologies of gender and desire"--prompt a complex and sophisticated treatment; the role of transformation in his films follows. The examination of "a predatory consumer culture," homoeroticism, and reconstruction of the patriarchal paradigm in Rice's vampire novels is also strong. Badley neatly and effectively integrates her primary and wide-ranging secondary sources; her fine, clear, and admirably set out analyses go beyond genre. With notes and a substantial selected bibliography, this volume is easily recommended for general, contemporary, and specialist collections. L. K. MacKendrick University of Windsor