Recently, I took to the internet to search for a guide to the best stories by Thomas Ligotti, but came up empty-handed.

If you’ve never heard of Ligotti, he’s a horror writer who gained a bit of public attention last year when HBO’s True Detective series was accused of plagiarizing his most famous work: The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, a non-fiction, philosophical work that many connected to the personal musings of lead character Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey).

However, Ligotti is most widely known for his short stories, which blend elements of Lovecraftian and cosmic horror with the surreal nightmares of David Lynch. His stories stand out from the pack when it comes to modern horror, and are some of the most unsettling and horrifying tales around today.

Ligotti is horror’s JD Salinger: an unquestionable genius of the genre who tends to stay away from the spotlight and lives in relative anonymity and reclusiveness, garnering a small cult following of his works.

Because of this, Ligotti’s collections can be extremely difficult to find as many are out-of-print and no longer available.

However, the folks at Penguin have finally seen the light, and will be releasing an omnibus edition of Ligotti’s Grimscribe and Songs of a Dead Dreamer collections this October.

So, to celebrate the upcoming release of this monumental horror volume, I’ve compiled a list of some of the best Ligotti stories out there with the intention of helping new readers familiarize themselves with one of the greatest writers in horror history.

Vastarien

My very first encounter with Ligotti came when I picked up American Supernatural Tales, published by Penguin and edited by ST Joshi. This collection brings together a wide variety of horror writers past and present, and features the story Vastarien by Thomas Ligotti.

Vastarien focuses on the narrator’s encounters with a mysterious book and a dark place he visits in his dreams.

This is certainly one of Ligotti’s tales most obviously inspired by Lovecraft, who was also fond of dream-travels and menacing tomes. Because of this, Vastarien is a perfect introduction to Ligotti for those who have read (and enjoyed) Lovecraft before.

This story was originally published in Songs of a Dead Dreamer, so it will likely be included in the upcoming omnibus as well as American Supernatural Tales.

The Bungalow House

If, however, you’re ready to really dive into the strange world of Thomas Ligotti and read the stories that set him far apart from the likes of Lovecraft and Poe, The Bungalow House might be an even better place to start.

Many of Ligotti’s narrators/protagonists find themselves in some way associated with underground or transgressive art scenes, with art and artists becoming a staple of Ligotti’s fiction much like Lovecraft’s penchant for cultists and aquatic deities.

In The Bungalow House, the narrator comes across a strange piece of performance art in the form of what he describes as ‘dream monologues’ left in a forgotten corner of mostly ignored art gallery. He becomes obsessed with the mysterious artist behind the piece and vows to speak to the man about the surreal monologues and their connection to his own tortured nightmares.

This story introduces a bunch of the staples of Ligotti’s fiction that come up time and time again: artists, dreams, surreal places and dilapidated buildings; making The Bungalow House one of his best.

The Bungalow House appears in Ligotti’s collection Teatro Grottesco, one of the few Ligotti collections still in print and readily available.

The Medusa

Combining themes explored in both Vasterien and The Bungalow House, this story centers around a narrator whose whole philosophy and world view is based on the legend of the Medusa, the gorgon of Greek mythology.

Philosophy is another theme that occurs here and there throughout Ligotti’s vast body of work. As stated earlier, Ligotti himself has a philosophical discourse of his own in Conspiracy Against the Human Race.

The Medusa appears in Ligotti’s collection Noctuary, which is currently out of print but may be found anthologized elsewhere.

The Clown Puppet

Another couple of Ligotti’s favorite horrors to include in his tales are puppets and clowns. Ligotti often uses both as strange metaphors for human nature and the significance of the conscience mind as a wholly meaningless thing.

In this story, a narrator working a graveyard shift in a neon-lit storefront is plagued by a series of haunting visions – visits, as he calls them – involving a life-sized clown puppet.

This is easily one of Ligotti’s best and most surreal horror stories, and one that will resonate in your mind for a long time after you finish reading The Clown Puppet.

This story can be found in the collection Teatro Grottesco.

The Red Tower

This story is one of Ligotti’s stream-of-consciousness approaches to storytelling, devoid of actual characters and instead focusing on a place.

The titular Red Tower is a strange factory producing a number of what are described as “novelty items” but which are actually strange, surreal objects brought forth from nightmares. Some of the items detailed in the story include replicas of human organs in various stages of disease described as “displeasingly warm and soft to the touch,” along with a human hand that grows fingernails overnight, bulbous gourds that produce a deafening scream when picked up or disturbed in any way, and an ornate music box that emits a horrid gurgling sound similar to that of a “dying individual’s death rattle.”

As you can see, The Red Tower is unlike many of the horror stories on the market today in that the actual horror relies less on scares and more on an unsettling onset of anxiety as only a master like Ligotti can produce in prose.

The Red Tower appears in the collection Teatro Grottesco.

The Sideshow and Other Stories

To be honest, I’ve saved the best for last, as The Sideshow and Other Stories is my undisputed favorite when it comes to Ligotti’s fiction. This story stayed with me for days, even weeks after reading it, and still fascinates me today.

The narrator of this story is a writer who frequently meets up with a mysterious older author of short fiction at a local bar on nights when the place is empty and dark. One day, the man fails to appear, but instead sends along a collection of very short tales. I feel as though I couldn’t do justice to the masterful surreal storytelling behind these flash-fictions pieces, and so I will not even attempt to summarize them here, and can say only that you must read to understand.

Like The Red Tower, The Sideshow and Other Stories is less about scaring readers with killers and monsters and more about an encroaching sense of dread and panic that takes hold as the story goes on.

Of all of Ligotti’s fiction, this story is the one I can most accurately compare to the work of filmmaker David Lynch, the man behind Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive. Ligotti himself was actually featured in the anthology In Heaven, Everything is Fine: Fiction Inspired by David Lynch.

This story can be found in the collection Teatro Grottesco.

While this list is short and does not cover everything Ligotti has written, it includes some of his most defining stories, and should serve as an introduction to the rest of his fiction for new readers.

Penguin’s Grimscribe/Songs of a Dead Dreamer omnibus edition hits bookshelves October 6th in the US, so make sure to pick up your copy and help celebrate one of the greatest living writers of horror fiction.

(Featured image by Serhiy Krykun)