Matthew Cheney

Joel Lane

On Clive Barker, Joel Lane, Margaret Thatcher, and the AIDS Crisis

image of the illustration, headline, and byline for "Poetry from the Plague Pit" on the Reactor website. Image is from Clive Barker's artwork for the original UK edition of The Books of Blood.

Reactor has published my essay “Poetry from the Plague Pit: The Early Stories of Clive Barker and Joel Lane”, which explores the work of two of my favorite writers of horror/weird short fiction within the context of Thatcherism and the AIDS crisis. This essay is the product of a year […]

Pride and Fall: Joel Lane, The Blue Mask, and Healing Imagination

Late in Joel Lane’s 2003 novel The Blue Mask, a character discusses his favorite books by Jean Genet: “I often think his scenarios are built up, not just from solitary fantasies, but from real sex. The books are a fundamental part of his love life. What he does on the […]