Book Review 4Book Review 4

I've always thought of Gothic romance as something of an oxymoron, but that's because I'm too influenced by turn-of-the-21st-century thinking. Gothic, or its derivative, goth, is associated solely with satanic shenanigans (thank you, Anne Rice), and romance means chest-heaving, bodice-ripping formula fodder.

But Gothic romance used to imply a subtle blend of supernatural thriller and epic quest, a search for true love and the meaning of life's (sometimes perverted) travails. Think Wuthering Heights.

Good Gothic romance is alive and well, to judge from two recent contributions. Both are short, and both bring the genre's conventions solidly into the present day (or thereabouts).

The Reconstructionist (Overlook Press, $25), by Josephine Hart, is a novel of family secrets and psycho-therapy. Hart, author of Damage, uses a male narrator to tell of a brother-sister relationship equal parts perverse and pious. The Reconstructionist is in the mold of Damage: same social milieu (upper-class England), same narrative drive, and same surprise ending.

For something more on the Gothic side, Beasts (Carroll & Graf, $16), by Joyce Carol Oates, offers up a heady brew of privileged co-eds, pornography, the cult of D.H. Lawrence, and primitive art. Oates, a jaw-droppingly prolific writer who teaches at Princeton, sets her narrative in the 1970s, an era remembered mostly for its excesses. Beasts also can be looked on as a sly parody of campus politics and creative writing classes.

Come to think of it, Gothic romance might be more relevant to today than I'd thought--it's not an unfair description of my 25-year marriage (but don't tell my wife I said so).