Episode 128: Demon Workshop: On Victoria Nelson's 'Neighbor George' - a podcast by Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

The American writer and thinker Victoria Nelson is justly revered by afficionados of the Weird for The Secret Life of Puppets and its follow-up Gothicka. Both are masterful explorations the supernatural as it subsists in the "sub-Zeitgeist" of the modern secular West. In 2021, Strange Attractor Press released Neighbor George, Nelson's first novel. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss this gothic anti-romance with a mind to seeing how it contributes to Nelson's overall project of acquainting us with the eldritch undercurrents of contemporary life.
Click here (https://www.supernormalfestival.co.uk) for more information on the Supernormal Festival, Aug 12-14, in Oxfordshire, England.Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com)Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies)
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ReferencesVictoria Nelson, Neighbor George (http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/neighbor-george/#:~:text=Set%20in%20a%20haunted%20northern,comic%20companion%20tale%2C%20Bolinas%20Venus%2C)
Victoria Nelson, The Secret Life of Puppets (https://bookshop.org/books/the-secret-life-of-puppets/9780674012448)Victoria Nelson, Gothicka (https://victorianelson.net/gothicka-vampire-heroes-human-gods-and-the-new-supernatural/)
Wendy Lesser (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Lesser), American criticWard Sutton Onion cartoons (https://www.theonion.com/queasy-on-the-eyes-1849035193)
Extension (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extension_(metaphysics)), metaphysical conceptTerry Castle, The Female Thermometer (https://bookshop.org/books/the-female-thermometer-eighteenth-century-culture-and-the-invention-of-the-uncanny/9780195080988)
Cessation of Miracles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessationism_versus_continuationism), theological beliefE. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande (https://bookshop.org/books/witchcraft-oracles-and-magic-among-the-azande-9780198740292/9780198740292)
Greg Anderson, “Retrieving the Lost Worlds of the Past: A Case for the Ontological Turn” (https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/120/3/787/19855?login=true)Orcus Grotto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardens_of_Bomarzo), sculpture
Margaret Atwood, The Edible Woman (https://bookshop.org/books/the-edible-woman/9780385491068)Nathalie Cooke, [Margaret Atwood: A Biography](https://www.google.com/books/edition/MargaretAtwood/zUBaAAAAMAAJ?hl=en)_Weird Studies, Episode 96 on Beauty and the Beast (https://www.weirdstudies.com/96)
M. C. Richards, “Wrestling with the Daemonic” (https://bookshop.org/books/the-crossing-point-poems/9780819560292)

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