From Mark McGurl’s exploration of the 21st century Gothic:

Before we can begin to take the measure of Gothicka: Vampire Heroes, Human Gods, and The New Supernatural, Victoria Nelson’s vivid, compendiously learned study of recent developments on the dark side of popular culture, we need first to agree that there is no God. This might seem like a lot to ask in the first sentence of a book review, but I’ll need even more from you: a further agreement that Satan, witches, angels, fairies, zombies, ghosts and vampires don’t exist either. Okay? From God on down, it’s a cavalcade of fictional characters, figures, figments, tending either toward the “darkness” or the “light,” but none of them, in the conventional sense, real.

Read the whole thing.