Non-Fiction Books

Should the human race voluntarily put an end to its existence? Do we even know what it means to be human? And what if we are nothing like we suppose ourselves to be? In this challenging philosophical work, celebrated supernatural writer Thomas Ligotti broaches these and other issues in an unflinching and penetrating manner that brings to mind some of his own imperishable horror fiction. For Ligotti, there is no refuge from our existence as conscious beings who must suppress their awareness of what horrors life holds in store for them. Yet try as we may, our consciousness may at any time rise up against our defenses against it, whispering to us things we would rather not hear: Religion is a transparent fantasy, optimism an exercise in delusional wish-fulfillment, and even the quest for pleasure an ultimately doomed enterprise. Drawing upon the work of such pessimistic philosophers as Arthur Schopenhauer and Peter Wessel Zapffe, as well as the findings of various fields of study such as neuroscience, moral philosophy, Terror Management Psychology, the sociology of self-deception, and the theory of uncanny experience, Ligotti presents a compelling contrivance of horror for the consideration of his reader. Perhaps most provocatively, Ligotti sees in the literature of supernatural fiction a confirmation of the cheerless vision he is propounding, dovetailing into his book the overarching theme that, having been ousted by evolution from the natural world, the human race has been effectively translated to a supernatural order of being. In this state of existence, we are denied slumber in nature s arms and must exist in a waking nightmare in which we are taunted by hints of our true nature. Written with the pungency and panache we expect from a master of English prose, The Conspiracy against the Human Race is a hypnotic guide to the darker regions of one of the most interesting minds of our time.

The process of interviewing varies. Most commonly it takes the form of conversations that result in off-the-cuff remarks between two or more persons. On other occasions the proceeding is more formal, with questions submitted in writing and answered in kind. The interviews in this volume belong to the latter type. Both the queries and responses were intended to result in more thoughtful and not infrequently more entertaining documents than otherwise might have resulted. This has been the case from the earliest to the most recent dialogues with Thomas Ligotti. Considered in sequence, the interviews herein both complement and extend statements that Ligotti has offered in other formats, including essays as well as his nonfiction work The Conspiracy against the Human Race (2010). While the running themes in this volume are not unlike those proffered by most authors--including compositional practices, sources of inspiration, and biographical revelations--Ligotti manages for the most part to reveal how idiosyncratic he is as an interview subject and as a writer of supernatural or weird horror tales. In both genres, the very title Born to Fear condenses the provenance of Ligotti's personal experiences and insights. Though often seen as a figure of contrived obscurity, Ligotti, in his replies to the interrogations posed, proves that this accusation is far from the facts. In short, reticence is not this writer's strong suit, especially when probed on matters that simply do not arise in more normative literary conversations. Ligotti is particularly opinionated and paradoxically droll when prompted to expound on philosophical views that to say the least are adrift from the mainstream. At the same time they are indicative of someone who has truly been born to fear, or at least deserves the benefit of the doubt on this question. Of course, readers always have the prerogative to judge for themselves.