Providence After Dark and Other Writings

Spanning nearly a half-century, the 61 essays, editorials, articles, reviews, op-ed pieces, and letters collected in this miscellany are a sumptuous sampling of the author’s appreciations and critiques of (among other topics) writing, books, and film. Klein (Reassuring Tales) is best known as a writer of weird fiction, the subject of half of the book’s contents, and he includes insightful appraisals of the work of Ramsey Campbell, H.P. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, and other horror luminaries, as well as “Horrors! An Introduction to Writing Horror Fiction,” a feature written during his influential tenure as the editor of Twilight Zone magazine that is both an instructive guide for aspiring horror writers and a potted history of the genre’s best authors and works. He also writes perceptively about movies, even though, as he notes in the genially self-deprecating “How I Flopped as a Paramount Script Reader,” he was not good at spotting commercially viable film material. Each of the book’s six sections ends with an interview in which Klein is allowed to expand on himself as well as his interests. In one, conducted in 2016, he encourages readers of genre fiction “to read more nonfiction in general”—an advisory that his fans will find this book fulfills. Those new to Klein’s work will be inspired to seek out his fiction after finishing this compulsively readable collection. (Nov.)