Bits of Autobiography and Interviews: Compiled by S. T. Joshi

by S.T. Joshi

During his more than four decades as a critic, editor, and reviewer in the field of weird fiction, S. T. Joshi has repeatedly been the subject of a wide range of interviews. As the leading authority on H. P. Lovecraft, Joshi has given dozens of interviews in which he recounts his work on this controversial author—restoring the texts of Lovecraft’s works, assessing the major themes and motifs in his writings, gauging his wide influence on subsequent literature and on popular culture. In addition, Joshi’s all-encompassing study of weird fiction has led to interviews on Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, and other leading writers. As an anthologist, Joshi has recounted his compilation of the Black Wings series and other volumes of weird fiction. Beyond this field, Joshi has made lasting contributions in the study of atheism, politics, and the work of H. L. Mencken. This volume reprints for the first time forty interviews that Joshi has given from 1989 to 2019. In addition, there are a handful of autobiographical essays in which Joshi tells of his early fascination with Lovecraft and his life as an atheist and critic. For anyone interested in the life and work of S. T. Joshi, this is an invaluable volume.

318 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2020

About the author

Sunand Tryambak Joshi is an Indian American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), Joshi has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and M.R. James, and has edited collections of their works.

His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.

Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.

In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.

Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.

In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.

Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.

Reviews

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the years Joshi has been subject of many published interviews, and they are collected here. While repetitive, of course every interviewer asks how Joshi first became interested in H.P. Lovecraft, but beyond this natural repetitiveness Joshi is refreshing as he has an opinion and he shares it. He doesn't give wishy-washy PC answers. If he doesn't like something, he says so. If he likes something, he enthusiastically praises it without regard to whether or not it will be obscure to readers.

A quick and enjoyable read.

[Benjamin Hare · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of interviews given by S.T. Joshi, the foremost H.P. Lovecraft scholar working today. For fans of Lovecraft there is little new, surprising, or even worthwhile in this book, especially if you've already read Joshi's preeminent, two-volume "I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft." For fans of Joshi himself, there is much to appreciate. Joshi's kindness, thoughtfulness, and prickliness are on repeated display in the four introductory essays and forty (!) included interviews. We learn about his childhood, his discovery of a Lovecraft paperback at a Muncie, Indiana public library, his tutelage under Lovecraft scholar Dirk S. Mosig, his time studying classics at Brown University in Rhode Island, and his textual discoveries while pouring over the Lovecraft archives of original manuscripts housed at the school's library. Joshi has a phenomenal, feverish work rate that I find incredible, and these interviews provide a glimpse into the passion behind that vast output. There are two spots of complaint about the book, both trivial. First, it's speckled with annoying typos; minor misspellings, wonky line breaks, and some of the opening quotation marks are swapped with double-low commas (so "pseudo-mythology" becomes „pseudo-mythology".) Second, no context is provided for the interviews. The interviewer's name is given, but not the title of the publication, where it was published, or the general interest of the magazine. We are forced to pick up these clues from the interviewer's questions, and I found this distracting. A few brief sentences of context before each interview would've been appreciated. Setting aside these small issues, this book is required reading for those interested in learning more about S.T. Joshi. The real goldmine in the work are Joshi's frequent mention of contemporary authors writing in the vein of Lovecraft. I came away with a long list of books added to my want-to-read list.