“But What about Me, and What I Felt?”: Morrissey’s List of the Lost as Queer Gothic

In one of the numerous negative reviews, Michael Hann described singer-songwriter Morrissey’s debut novella, List of the Lost (2015), as “an unpolished turd of a book, the stale excrement of Morrissey’s imagination,” yet from a queer perspective, it is pioneering. This article explores Morrissey’s i...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Brontë Schiltz
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Zadar 2022-06-01
Series:[sic]
Online Access:http://www.sic-journal.org/ArticleView.aspx?aid=685
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849424341062647808
author Brontë Schiltz
author_facet Brontë Schiltz
author_sort Brontë Schiltz
collection DOAJ
description In one of the numerous negative reviews, Michael Hann described singer-songwriter Morrissey’s debut novella, List of the Lost (2015), as “an unpolished turd of a book, the stale excrement of Morrissey’s imagination,” yet from a queer perspective, it is pioneering. This article explores Morrissey’s innovative engagement with Gothic horror, building on his explorations of the mode during his musical career. Throughout the novella, Morrissey subverts numerous Gothic staples, from curative maternity and reproductive futurity to monstrously fragmented subjectivity to condemnations of Catholicism – the latter of which he retains, though to entirely different ends to his Protestant literary ancestors. Through such devices, Morrissey participates in Teresa Goddu’s concept of ‘haunting back,’ turning hostile Gothic tropes on their head to carve out a new space for queer experience within the mode – historically conservative as often as it is transgressive – and reveals the true specter of society to be not difference, but its suppression.
format Article
id doaj-art-97437074a27941b1806d36c7b28dad1e
institution Kabale University
issn 1847-7755
language English
publishDate 2022-06-01
publisher University of Zadar
record_format Article
series [sic]
spelling doaj-art-97437074a27941b1806d36c7b28dad1e2025-08-20T03:30:14ZengUniversity of Zadar[sic]1847-77552022-06-0112210.15291/sic/2.12.lc.2685“But What about Me, and What I Felt?”: Morrissey’s List of the Lost as Queer GothicBrontë SchiltzIn one of the numerous negative reviews, Michael Hann described singer-songwriter Morrissey’s debut novella, List of the Lost (2015), as “an unpolished turd of a book, the stale excrement of Morrissey’s imagination,” yet from a queer perspective, it is pioneering. This article explores Morrissey’s innovative engagement with Gothic horror, building on his explorations of the mode during his musical career. Throughout the novella, Morrissey subverts numerous Gothic staples, from curative maternity and reproductive futurity to monstrously fragmented subjectivity to condemnations of Catholicism – the latter of which he retains, though to entirely different ends to his Protestant literary ancestors. Through such devices, Morrissey participates in Teresa Goddu’s concept of ‘haunting back,’ turning hostile Gothic tropes on their head to carve out a new space for queer experience within the mode – historically conservative as often as it is transgressive – and reveals the true specter of society to be not difference, but its suppression.http://www.sic-journal.org/ArticleView.aspx?aid=685
spellingShingle Brontë Schiltz
“But What about Me, and What I Felt?”: Morrissey’s List of the Lost as Queer Gothic
[sic]
title “But What about Me, and What I Felt?”: Morrissey’s List of the Lost as Queer Gothic
title_full “But What about Me, and What I Felt?”: Morrissey’s List of the Lost as Queer Gothic
title_fullStr “But What about Me, and What I Felt?”: Morrissey’s List of the Lost as Queer Gothic
title_full_unstemmed “But What about Me, and What I Felt?”: Morrissey’s List of the Lost as Queer Gothic
title_short “But What about Me, and What I Felt?”: Morrissey’s List of the Lost as Queer Gothic
title_sort but what about me and what i felt morrissey s list of the lost as queer gothic
url http://www.sic-journal.org/ArticleView.aspx?aid=685
work_keys_str_mv AT bronteschiltz butwhataboutmeandwhatifeltmorrisseyslistofthelostasqueergothic