FICTION

A COLLECTION OF CONTEMPORARY GOTHIC FICTION, edited by Bradford Morrow and Patrick McGrath (Random House; $22; 337 pp . ). The traditional Gothic landscape usually consisted of gloomy castles, foreboding cliffs and stormy weather with passions to match. Today’s Gothic writers, though they may have contemporary settings, share a comparable tone with their earlier counterparts. This admirable collection of short stories demonstrates that Gothic fiction is neither musty nor outdated. Here, terror and horror are largely psychological, although the bloodshed is often more explicit. The authors range from the established (Martin Amis, Joyce Carol Oates, an excerpt from Anne Rice’s “Interview With the Vampire”) to the countercultural (Kathy Acker’s AIDS metaphor piece “J”). A twisted tale of Hollywood emerges from Angela Carter’s “The Merchant of Shadows” when an eager writer tracks down a legendary and reclusive film star. While it may not create new Gothic fans, devotees will find here several pleasant shivers.