It's easy to think Frankenstein or Dracula when we consider the Gothic Tradition - but what about something more contemporary? Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop is perhaps British domestic Gothic at its best, where elements of fairy tale and the fanstastic are reworked in a narrative where relations are warped, dysfunctional.
In this Gothic space, the normally 'safe' domestic is invaded, disturbed by the Strange; by violence. It is a place where Nature itself has turned from the safe - expressed as middle class, suburban garden - to the sinister, so that whereas at first a 'fresh, little grass-scented wind' blew and the flowers gave out 'unguessable sweetness', later 'the branches, menacing, tore her hair and thrashed her face'.
It is a fine piece of Gothic terror (not horror!). A must-have for our writing workshops this autumn!
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