By Jeremy Webster

 

In a world where entertainment is becoming more and more swallowed by disposable pop culture nostalgia, the written works of Brian J. Showers stand out due to his classical influences and clear regard for - and interest in - history. With The Bleeding Horse and Other Ghost Stories, Mr. Showers’ first collection of horror tales, the author remembers how the greats of eras past inspired chills in their readers and applies his own talented, contemporary hand to the task with tremendous success.

* * *

My own first introduction to your written work actually wasn’t via your fiction, but through your scholarly, well-researched essays on literary horror greats of the past. How did you become so well-educated on the genre’s past talents?

 

That was Literary Walking Tours of Gothic Dublin (Nonsuch 2006, http://www.brianjshowers.com/gothicdublin.html ), which is about Dublin’s three great macabre writers: Charles Maturin, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and Bram Stoker.

 

I’ve been an admirer of Le Fanu’s psychological-supernatural tales for as long as I can remember—no vintage is finer! With Stoker I’d read the odd story in anthologies, but I didn’t read him extensively until the Gothic Dublin project. And until that point I don’t think I’d read anything by Maturin, though I was aware him. His sole short story ‘Leixlip Castle’ is excellent, but I found Melmoth the Wanderer to be daunting. I may be mis-remembering, but I think even Lovecraft couldn’t finish reading it!

 

Anyway, until I moved to Dublin in 2000, I had never considered the ‘Irishness’ of these authors. For one reason or another, this aspect of their backgrounds never really occurred to me. It was a sort of epiphany when I realised that, hey, these gents have something in common!

 

I wouldn’t necessarily call myself ‘well-educated’; there’s certainly more scholarly stuff written on all of these authors. But my interest in and fascination with these writers is more of an outgrowth of my literary interests mingling with the exploration of my adopted hometown. I remember the day I was walking in Dublin’s city centre. I was on a street I go down many times per week, but on this day, when I looked up at the street sign, something just clicked: ‘Aungier Street’. I was standing in the midst of the setting for Le Fanu’s famous story ‘An Account of Some Strange Disturbances on Aungier Street’. Immediately my mind started to superimpose details from the story onto the modern day cityscape. From there it was just a matter of focused reading and plenty of wandering about the city. I wore out many pairs of shoes.

 

Where can our readers/listeners go to check out your essay work?

 

I put some of my essays on my website, www.brianjshowers.com. There are a couple of good ones about Le Fanu that I did for an online journal called Le Fanu Studies (http://www.jslefanu.com/lefanustudies.html). I also pride myself in a well-written book review. I think some of the best book reviews are more like essays rather than simple plot synopses followed by a thumb or star rating. I try my best!

 

What was your major in University?

 

I dual-majored in English (British) Literature and Communication Arts, which basically means I took a lot of film theory courses and am now not qualified for any practical job.

 

Before the release of The Bleeding Horse and Other Ghost Stories (Mercier Press 2008, http://www.brianjshowers.com/rathmines.html), you had plenty of your short work published in a rather unique, timely-feeling chapbook format. Who publishes these chapbooks, and how do they go about making them?

 

Those were published by The Swan River Press, which is essentially me sitting in front of the TV watching countless horror films with a friend as we hand-bind these things: cutting and folding each page, drilling tiny holes to sew the pages together, etc. The format is technically A7, which is roughly palm-sized.

 

The idea behind the chapbooks is that I wanted something to give to friends and family as a Hallowe’en gift. The first tale, ‘The Old Tailor & The Gaunt Man’, is a Hallowe’en-inspired ghost/bedtime story. The following year I wrote a Christmas-themed ghost story, ‘The Snow Came Softly Down’, which is more in accordance with the English tradition of a winter’s tale.

 

The chapbooks take an obnoxiously long time to make and I usually wear off my fingerprints doing it. It’s the best time to commit a few crimes. The procedure itself is kind of complex, and there’s probably easier ways to do this sort of thing, but I enjoy the process and like making things with my hands. I occasionally get e-mails from people asking me how I make the chapbooks, so I wrote an extended article on my website explaining each step in fair detail (http://www.brianjshowers.com/making_swan.html). Duane Spurlock wrote a companion article on illustrating them (http://www.brianjshowers.com/making_swan2.html).

 

I’ve done five stories so far (one year was a two-parter), so six chapbooks in total. Each chapbook is illustrated and I’ve been fortunate enough to work with three talented artists, each with a strong sense of the macabre: Meggan Kehrli, Duane Spurlock, and Jeff Roche. I think they really add a lot to the charm of the publications.

 

I’ve also started publishing stories by other writers. It’s mainly an excuse to work on projects with some of the best writers currently working in the field, and at the same time give my pal Meggan more illustration work (a request which I’m sure she’s now regretting!). So far I’ve worked on booklets with Peter Bell, Helen Grant, Reggie Oliver, Gary McMahon, Ed Crandall, and Mark Valentine. Some of the haunting imagery these people come up with is simply amazing.

 

You obviously have a strong connection with Ireland in regards to your written work, both fiction and non-fiction. If there is such a thing as an Irish Supernatural Tradition in Fiction, would you say you’re continuing it? Expanding on it? In what ways does your connection to Ireland inspire what you write?

 

I should probably point out for your readers that I’m originally from Madison, Wisconsin, not Ireland. I moved here in 2000 shortly after finishing university. But I have developed some sort of connection with this country - Dublin in particular. And much to the shock of many Irish people I meet, I have no Irish relatives, no roots here, and I never get misty-eyed on St. Patrick’s Day. Ever. It remains a mystery as to why I moved here. Even to me.

 

There is definitely a supernatural tradition in Ireland, but I think it’s mostly sprouted from ballads and the folkloric tradition rather than as a formal literary school. Folklore has always been important to the historical native Irish, as well as to the Protestant Anglo-Irish, who were almost like ‘outsiders’ even though many were Irish-born for generations. From the mid 19th through the early 20th centuries there was an increase in interest in Irish folklore and language, particularly in the wake of the birth of the Irish nation and the need to re-discover or perhaps re-construct a national identity. A lot of the old folk stories and legends were written down in a literary fashion by people like Samuel Lover, William Carleton, Sir William and Lady Wilde, and others. Incidentally, Maturin, Le Fanu, and Stoker were all part of the Protestant ascendancy, and each on some level was influenced by the Irish folkloric tradition.

 

Just to say so, the stories in The Bleeding Horse are set in Rathmines, which is the area of Dublin that I live in. As to whether I’m working within a tradition, I think I probably am. There was a review by Reggie Oliver that made an astute observation which, until he pointed it out, I hadn’t considered: “Le Fanu was a native of Ireland who belonged to the Protestant ascendancy and in Showers there is something of the same alienated familiarity and fascination with his surroundings.” It’s probably my own outsider status that allows me to view the facets of this city in a way different than most native Dubliners might. I’m influenced by what’s in the air. Who isn’t? Naturally I process these influences through my own special set of filters. I also have an arch sense of humour, which is certainly not out of place around here.

 

The Bleeding Horse and Other Ghost Stories is your first published collection of stories. How did you go about choosing which stories to publish? Was anything left on the cutting room floor, so to speak?

 

As you know the stories in The Bleeding Horse follow a topographical agenda from the Dublin end of Rathmines Road, over the Grand Canal, and into Rathmines. The road looks like a modern city street now: it’s filled with commuter traffic, chippers, betting agents, and flash hotels; but it’s actually running along the exact same path as the original pre-Norman highway, so we’re talking a roughly 900 year old stretch of road. It’s this history between then and now that I draw upon in my stories.

 

When I first started the book, I jotted down a short list. There were certain places in my neighbourhood that I had become fascinated with over the years for one reason or another. Sometimes it was because of an odd historical note or because a landmark was striking enough that it demanded a story. And it made sense simply to address them in the same order as if you were walking down the street: the eponymous local pub, the old Portobello hotel, La Touche Bridge—scene of a fatal omnibus accident—and the Blackberry Fair wherein haunts a most vicious spirit. I didn’t make a formal decision to write half the stories in the book. They were written in the order in which they appear in the book and sort of flowed naturally, one after the other.

 

There was one story that didn’t make the final cut, but that was only due to space restrictions. It’s called ‘Old Albert’. It’s set in St. Mary’s College and concerns an ornithologist named Ellis Grimwood. The story is hinted at in The Bleeding Horse in ‘A Note to the Reader’. I think it’s one of the best stories I’ve written so far. I’m really proud of it. If I get my way, this story will appear as the first in the next volume of Rathmines ghost stories.

 

Your prose style is a mix of sophistication and relaxation—I have a mental image of you sitting in front of a fireplace with old history books, very warm, and inviting. Was this style a deliberate choice on your part or is it your typical mode of writing?

 

I do live in an old Georgian house, but the fireplace in my flat is bricked up and plastered over; the mantelpiece long since removed. You are right about the pile of old history books though. My writing style is definitely deliberate, but I try to vary it depending on what I’m working on. The first two chapbooks I wrote were meant to read like bedtime stories.

 

The stories in The Bleeding Horse were composed with an air of conversational familiarity. I’m influenced in part by the almost scholarly restraint typified by the late 19th/early 20th century supernatural writers like M. R. James, Algernon Blackwood, and Arthur Machen. There’s a certain confidence and control in horror writing of this era, so I try to reflect this same sort of reticence in my own work. In The Bleeding Horse I want the reader to feel as if they’re on a guided tour of my neighbourhood. And by creating a sense of narrative authority and comfort, I hope to increase the plausibility of the fantastic, which I feel is important in horror. I think I was reasonably successful at this. In fact I’ve even received a few emails from local readers who are quite certain that some of the things I’ve made up are real!

 

In the first half of the book—‘The Road to Rathmines’—one of the most recurrent images is that of the horse. Is there a particular reason for the importance of this creature in general?

 

Yeah, there’s the bleeding horse of the title story, the horse drawn carriage in ‘Favourite No. 7 Omnibus’, and painter Jack B. Yeats, who features in ‘Oil on Canvas’ frequently painted horses. I wish I could take full credit for it, but the horse motif, along with some other recurring images, was sort of organic. It was something I noticed almost after the fact or at least during the later stages of writing. It’s a great feeling because I felt like on some level I hit upon an image that was significant to the neighbourhood itself, like I was privy to intimate knowledge.

 

In ‘Quis Separabit’ you present the reader with a tale alluding to the existence of a frightening entity called The Blackberry Man. What was the inspiration behind it?

 

The Blackberry Man comes from two places, really. The first is when I was writing the story, I quickly realised that I needed a source of menace that spanned the decades - one that would link the mystery of the Irish Crown Jewels to the modern day Blackberry market. It was not only a way to link the present with the past, but also a way to link the threat of the past with the potential for harm in present.

 

The visual aspect of the Blackberry Man I owe to über cool-dude Scott Hampton. Scott very graciously allowed me to use his artwork for the dust jacket of the book. There was this one haunting illustration he did for an Oliver Onions story in Spookhouse 2 that I really loved, so I used it on the back cover of The Bleeding Horse. The illustration depicts an Edwardian man in a long coat and a derby; he is turned away from us. I wondered what he might look like if he slowly turned around. I figured if I’m going to use this image on the dust jacket, I might as well incorporate the image into one of the stories. And so the ghastly Blackberry Man was born.

 

Unlike the stories that came before it, ‘Quis Separabit’ loses the more aged aspect to find the narrator recounting direct interviews with eyewitnesses. Was this a deliberate change-up in your tale delivery mode at this point, or did it ‘just happen that way’ while writing?

 

I try to do this in varying degrees with all of the stories in the book, but I think it’s the most pronounced in ‘Quis Separabit’ because it’s the first story where the narrator really becomes a character. The reader has a link with the narrator who is directly involved in the story, so it’s really kind of a way to bring the reader closer to the story.

 

If you were to create a primer of key Irish supernatural fiction—barring Dracula because it’s an obvious, of course—what would it contain?

 

I’ll take the easy way out and simply list authors. Interested parties can Google. As you said, some are obvious. There’s Stoker, who is hit and miss. You can’t go wrong with Le Fanu. Charles Maturin will probably be of limited interest, but certainly Melmoth the Wanderer. Lafcadio Hearn, who grew up around the corner from me here in Rathmines, albeit over a century ago, wrote some excellent Japanese ghost stories. Fitz James O’Brien’s macabre stories are notable, especially ‘What Was It?’ and his ballad ‘The Demon of the Gibbet’. In addition to a number of ghostly short stories, Mrs. Riddell wrote the excellent novella ‘The Uninhabited House’, but I’m not sure if she’s considered ‘Irish’—she was born in Ireland, but sometimes this line gets blurred, especially if an Irish-born author earns his or her reputation abroad. Riddell, Stoker, Shaw, and Wilde are all good examples of this.

 

In the fantastic tradition there’s Lord Dunsany and an overlooked fellow by the name of Mervyn Wall who wrote a couple of wonderful books called The Unfortunate Fursey and The Return of Fursey. From here you’d do well to branch out into Irish folklore and poetry, which has always had a strong influence on the Irish supernatural. James Stephens’s Crock of Gold, the poetry of George Russell and W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory’s Gods and Fighting Men and other literary revival writers.

 

What are your personal favorites of the genre?

 

Aside from perennial favourites like M.R. James, Le Fanu, Machen, Wakefield, Benson, Blackwood, et al., I’d have to say that one of my favourite supernatural stories is William Hope Hodgson’s novel The House on the Borderland. The first half is a real roller coaster, but the cosmicism of the book’s second half is an existential nightmare. Admittedly not for everyone, but this is a book that really does it for me.

 

There are a number of contemporary writers who I admire. The three collections by Reggie Oliver are excellent. I like Adam Golaski’s stuff—I just received a copy of his first collection and am really looking forward to reading it. Steve Duffy’s good too, in particular a story called ‘Someone Across the Way’. That story gave me some serious chills. I direct anyone interested in modern supernatural writers to the anthologies published by Ash-Tree Press and Tartarus Press. They’re real treasure troves. Very shortly I’ll be reading a collection called The Passion Play and Other Ghost Stories by a writer named Antony Oldknow. I have high expectations.

 

What are some of Ireland’s customary traditions in regards to Hallowe’en?

 

Not a whole lot. I think Hallowe’en as a holiday is mostly a suburban American thing. You can get decorations and pumpkins here now, so I generally carve a jack-o-lantern, bake a pie, and roast the seeds. There’s a great horror film festival called Horrorthon that runs the last weekend of October. I attend that every year. But it’s largely an imported holiday; there’s no larger community sense of it that I’ve noticed.

 

What are you working on next?

 

The Bleeding Horse is actually only one third of a much larger project that I call Ghost Stories of Rathmines, after Le Fanu’s Ghost Stories of Chapelizod. If you look at a map of Rathmines Road, you’ll see that the stories in The Bleeding Horse get us about one third of the way down it. There are about ten to twelve stories I’d still like to write before we’ve traversed the entire length of the road. So that’s what I’m working on now. There’s also another project that I can’t say too much about because the papers aren’t signed yet, but it’s a genre thing and I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens with it. So we’ll just have to wait and see what’s next I suppose. I’ll keep you posted!

 

What is your own feeling toward ghosts? Are they real or imaginary?

 

I rather like the open-mindedness of the true Fortean sceptic, which is probably best summed up in M. R. James’s supposed deathbed statement when he was asked about his own belief in ghosts. He said, “I am prepared to consider the evidence and accept it if it satisfies me.”

 

On the other hand I think on many levels the question of real or imaginary is pointless. I prefer to consider what the spectre means to the spectator rather than to question the physical reality of such an apparition.

 

If you’re interested in or would like to order the works of Brian J. Showers, feel free to visit www.brianjshowers.com.