The New Abject extract - 'Extending the Family' by Ramsey Campbell by Comma Press

SOMETHING HAS FALLEN AWAY. We have lost a part of ourselves, our history, what we once were. That something, when we encounter it again, look it straight in the eyes, disgusts us, makes us retch. This is the horror of the abject. The New Abject invites leading authors to respond to two parallel theories of the abject – Julia Kristeva’s theory of the psychoanalytic, intimate abject, and Georges Bataille’s societal equivalent – with visceral stories of modern unease. As we become ever-more isolated by social media bubbles, or the demands for social distancing, our moral gag-reflex is increasingly sensitised, and our ability to tolerate difference, or ‘the other’, atrophies. Like all good horror writing, these stories remind us that exposure to what unsettles us, even in small doses, is always better than pretending it doesn’t exist. After all, we can never be wholly free of that which belongs to us.

This is an extract from Ramsey Campbell's short story, 'Extending the Family', read by the author himself and recorded over Zoom. The story explores the abjection of one’s own past from one’s present.

Ramsey Campbell is described by the Oxford Companion to English Literature as ‘Britain’s most respected living horror writer’. He is the author of over 30 novels (most recently The Way of the Worm (2018) andThe Wise Friend (2020), six novellas, and hundreds of short stories, many of them widely considered classics in the field and winners of multiple literary awards.