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.

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

A new podcast from UK based independent publisher Comma Press, specialising in the short story and literature in translation.

Series Two: Futures, brings listeners 6 discussions around future-set fiction, including sci-fi, speculative fiction and future-looking literary fiction. This series takes in a number of recent and bestselling Comma titles, with episodes featuring authors, translators, editors and academics in conversation about the influence of genre, and how science-fiction and writing about the future can and has changed and expanded horizons for readers and writers.

Series One: Protest, brings listeners 6 discussions around stories featured in the Comma anthology 'Protest: Stories of Resistance'. This collection brought authors together with historians, sociologists and eyewitnesses to re-imagine key moments of British protest.