I’ve been thinking about genre lately – about the boundaries of the Gothic genre as a whole and about the ongoing currency of definitions of the ‘female Gothic’ in particular. I have never been especially worried about whether any given text met enough Gothic criteria to ‘count’ as a Gothic novel, but the question of generic definitions is one I’m used to answering. And I have always hated the category of the ‘female Gothic’, for all the usual reasons about its tendency to encourage ahistorical gender essentialism. Overall, I have a strong sense that over-reliance on generic demarcations is confining, but I remain curious as to whether this is countered by the usefulness of such classification.

8th February 2013 is the UK release date for the film adaptation of Isaac Marion’s debut novel Warm Bodies. Understandably, the story of “R”, the romantic undead protagonist, and his love interest Julie, has mistakenly been compared to that of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga. This misunderstanding has been aided by Meyer’s lauding endorsement on the front cover of the novel and the way in which the film has been advertised with very “Twilight-esque” posters. However, Twilight and Warm Bodies are both produced by Summit Entertainment and suggested similarities between the two

Salem Brownstone is a relatively lengthy graphic novel that tells the story of orphan, Salem, who, on receiving a telegram informing him of his father’s death, inherits his father’s peculiar house and possessions and is plunged into a terrifying and dangerous mystery involving uncanny circus performers, shadow creatures, dark elders from another realm, and bizarre ritual magic. Initially, the images and tone of the novel place us in a film noir-cum-art-deco inspired universe, where everything is blanched, grey, ethereal and slightly out of kilter.