It's a halloween special episode of the Country Life podcast this week, as James Fisher is joined by writer Louise Davidson to discuss all things Gothic and the country house.
Why are country houses so often the perfect settings for horror novels? Might it be that they are big, with lots of dusty rooms, isolated from their neighbours and with a long history of past owners? Well, yes, when you write it like that the answer seems pretty obvious. But that’s just one of the reasons, as Louise Davidson, author of the Gothic novel The Fortunes of Olivia Richmond, explains.
From Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto to the modern day, the Gothic novel has long captured our imaginations and preyed on our fears, especially at this, the spookiest time of year. We associate so much of horror with the screen these days, so it was fascinating to look behind the scenes of horror in fiction, to discover the craft behind unsettling and scaring a reader.
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Louise herself is no stranger to the supernatural. Growing up in Northern Ireland with an aunt who was — and had been since childhood — possessed of supernatural gifts made the idea of thinking, talking and writing about ghosts second nature to Louise. But there’s far more to our obsession with haunted houses than just the ghost stories which we tell, as she explains.
But most of all, Louise is just a great person to have a chat with, ghosts and various country-house horrors aside. I learned a lot just from listening to her, and I’m sure you will too.
You can follow Louise Davidson on X and Instagram, or see more about The Fortunes of Olivia Richmond.
Episode credits
- Host: James Fisher
- Guest: Louise Davidson
- Editor and Producer: Toby Keel
- Music: JuliusH via Pixabay
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