SOMEBODY'S VOICE by Ramsey Campbell -- a review and interview with the author
SOMEBODY’S VOICE by Ramsey Campbell Review by Gary Fry The theme of abnormal psychology is common in Ramsey Campbell’s work, and more recently he’s focused specifically on what he terms “the comedy of paranoia”, the way beleaguered characters negotiate contemporary life and are frequently tipped into feelings of nebulous persecution. In many of the non-supernatural novels, his troubled characters’ pathologies precede the narratives’ onset ( The Face That Must Die, The Last Voice They Hear, Silent Children, Secret Stories ), but in the similarly social realist shorter fiction we often see how negative experiences precipitate mental collapse (“The End of the Line”, “McGonagall in the Head”, “Unblinking”, and any number of others). With the exception perhaps of The Count of Eleven , we’ve yet to have a novel-length account of incipient psychological disintegration that doesn’t involve outr é elements (as in, say, The House on Nazareth Hill ). But now here is Somebody’s Voice .