The Book of Terror

"The essential beauty of the emotion of fear is the way that it can reduce the self to a single sensation that is at once formless and personal. We speak of being frightened out of our minds, and it is an apt metaphor. Out of our minds and into our bodies. In the adrenalin rush that comes with terror, every cell iin the body recalls its ancient duty to freeze, flight, or run. In the real world, in the presence of physical danger, fear make sensatualists out of us all and turns the entire self into a pillar of attention. Once we have killed the saber toothed tiger, or escaped from the embrace of the boa constrictor, the memory of that sensational moment, framed now by the relief of our escape, can seem beautiful. That terrifying beauty is what draws us to the literature of fear whose pages we are reconnected, time after time, to the electric charge of instinctual life. People in terror tales still face primordial dangers. Disregarding the advice of Satchel Paige, they look back to discover that something is gaining on them.”

- Preface, The Book of Terror, anthology.