"Deeply personal and unique, this experimental memoir melds a lifelong obsession with the supernatural with critical theory to create a work of horror in its own right."
“A true ghost story about watching ghosts on screens,” as author Claire Cronin sets out in her introduction, Blue Light of the Screen: On Horror, Ghosts, and God presents a fascinating blend of personal memoir, passion for the horror genre, and critical insights.
The book’s episodic structure interweaves the author’s story - how she grew up in a committed Catholic household, how she battled depression, her experiences of grief and hauntings – with her thoughts on cultural theorists and philosophers like Derrida, Kristeva and McLuhan.
At once raw and ethereal, the writing is as compelling and shifting as a supernatural chiller — “If this is a memoir, it’s a memoir of a mood. If this is a story, it’s a ghost story. If this is philosophy, it’s about the spectral interchange between seeing and believing” — making it a satisfying experience for readers who share the author’s obsession for the genre, and students of critical theory.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
| Other Genres: |
Blue Light of the Screen is a memoir about the author's obsession with horror and the supernatural.
Blue Light of the Screen is about what it means to be afraid -- about immersion, superstition, delusion, and the things that keep us up at night.
A creative-critical memoir of the author's obsession with the horror genre, Blue Light of the Screen embeds its criticism of horror within a larger personal story of growing up in a devoutly Catholic family, overcoming suicidal depression, uncovering intergenerational trauma, and encountering real and imagined ghosts.
As Cronin writes, she positions herself as a protagonist who is haunted by what she watches and reads, like an antiquarian in an M.R. James ghost story whose sense of reality unravels through her study of arcane texts and cursed archives. In this way, Blue Light of the Screen tells the story of the author's conversion from skepticism to faith in the supernatural.
Part memoir, part ghost story, and part critical theory, Blue Light of the Screen is not just a book about horror, but a work of horror itself.
Blue Light of the Screen On Horror, Ghosts, and God features in the following genres: Biographies & Autobiographies, Health & Fitness, Mind, body, spirit, Memoirs, Popular culture, Unexplained phenomena / the paranormal, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, Society and Social Sciences, Society and culture: general, Cultural and media studies, Cultural studies
Blue Light of the Screen On Horror, Ghosts, and God is available in Paperback
Blue Light of the Screen On Horror, Ghosts, and God was written by Claire Cronin and published by Repeater Books an imprint of Watkins Media
Blue Light of the Screen On Horror, Ghosts, and God has 220 pages
£11.69
