Southern Ontario Gothic and James Reaney

June 4, 2015 — Southern Ontario Gothic was the topic of discussion on TV Ontario’s “Agenda” tonight. Panelists Jane Urqhart, Monika Lee, Michael Hurley, and Shani Mootoo recommend these titles for your Gothic fiction fix:

♦ Jane Urqhart: Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
♦ Monika Lee: The Donnellys by James Reaney
♦ Michael Hurley: Perpetual Motion by Graeme Gibson
♦ Shani Mootoo: All the Broken Things by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer

James Reaney is one of our best Gothic writers from Southern Ontario, and he is one of the most influential. He’s had a huge impact on a lot of writers who are more famous than he is, like Alice Munro and Margret Atwood,” says Monika Lee, Professor of English Literature at Brescia College.

June 4, 2015 — Monika Lee champions James Reaney’s The Donnellys as a true Southern Ontario Gothic work. TV Ontario: http://tvo.org/programs/the-agenda-with-steve-paikin/southern-ontario-gothic

 More about Southern Ontario Gothic:

“James Reaney’s plays — Colours in the Dark (1969), Baldoon (1976), and The Donnellys (1974-7) — as well as his short stories “The Bully” and “The Box Social” (reprinted in The Box Social and Other Stories in 1996), also assume Gothic elements of the macabre rooted in nightmarish families and uncanny action. […]

What makes this locale so prone to Gothic tales is the failure of communication between family members or social groups. In the absence of communication, strange projections and psychological grotesqueries spring up and rapidly grow to unmanageable proportions. Malevolent fantasies are the source and sustenance of the Gothic tradition.”
Michael Hurley and Allan Hepburn in The Concise Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, pages 593-594. William Toye, Ed., Oxford University Press, 2011.

Watch the video here: >>> https://www.tvo.org/video/southern-ontario-gothic

 

See also “James Reaney on writing about the Donnellys”: https://jamesreaney.com/2019/01/04/james-reaney-on-writing-about-the-donnellys/