Seen in that context, what do you believe is the chief significance of your own work?
I’d like to think I’m one of the uniting factors, bringing together influences of writers I especially admire from both sides of the Atlantic (as Lovecraft did, of course, and Leiber after him). Maybe I’m some kind of nexus for Lovecraft (especially his attention to structure) and M. R. James (for reticence and suggestiveness). Of course I don’t always display either. I’d say my career is an honourable failure overall – I hope it’s honourable, anyway.
What do you envision as your role in the evolution of the genre?
I was very happy when Jack Sullivan suggested that I was “bringing the supernatural tale up to date without sacrificing the literary standards that early masters made an indelible part of the tradition.” I’d even hope that I brought elements back into the field that I could find only or mainly in the mainstream, however clumsily I’ve used or developed them. I do think I’ve helped the field a little way towards talking about the modern world and how we live in it, but I also think it’s crucial to reach for awe, and maybe some of my best stuff doesn’t fall too short of that. If I’ve introduced something that’s relatively my own, I’d say it’s comedy of paranoia in such tales as The Grin of the Dark.
OCCUPY DARKNESS - Ramsey Campbell
