More books that feel like nightmares, please
June 1, 2023 5:28 PM   Subscribe

I just finished reading Graham Greene's The Ministry of Fear, which I very much enjoyed. It reminded me strongly of Geoffrey Householder's Rogue Male, which I also recently reread. What other books like these should I read?

What I like specifically about these books is that the experience of reading them felt like walking through a nightmare. While both books are strongly rooted in reality with nothing supernatural going on*, the action and most of the dialogue works on dream logic that doesn't quite make sense. Unimportant but horrible and surreal details get noted by the narration. The protagonist is unreliable, either because their perceptions can't be trusted or because they're actively lying to the reader. There's a constant atmosphere of anxiety and claustrophobia.

While there are other obvious similarities between the two books I've mentioned (written around the same time, British, WWII), I'm more interested in finding other books that are similar in tone, rather than in plot or setting details. What I'm looking for is most likely going to be thrillers or horror, but I am open to any genre of fiction. I would like to avoid explicit sexual violence if at all possible.

Thank you!






*Okay, except the psychic bond with the cat in Rogue Male.
posted by darchildre to Media & Arts (36 answers total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
I got that feeling from The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne.
posted by moonmilk at 5:38 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]


Are you opposed to anything supernatural? "Walking through a nightmare" made me think of The Master and Margarita, which, incidentally, inspired the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil."
posted by FencingGal at 5:42 PM on June 1, 2023


Response by poster: I am absolutely not opposed to the supernatural.
posted by darchildre at 5:43 PM on June 1, 2023


All of Tana French's crime novels fit this description (including the ambiguously supernatural). And memorably so.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:45 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]


Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. Our POV character, Casaubon, is a bright young scholar who has been drawn slowly into what appears to be a world-spanning, centuries-old conspiracy. Which is why he ends up, on page one, hiding out in a museum after closing time.
posted by SPrintF at 5:46 PM on June 1, 2023 [5 favorites]


Mark Z. Danielewski‘s House of Leaves is a beautiful, beautiful piece of writing that can still evoke terrible shadows in my thoughts. Parts of it are very much akin to that slow realization that maybe you’ve slipped into a night terror.
posted by Silvery Fish at 5:55 PM on June 1, 2023 [6 favorites]


last time I had that vibe it was Firefly Rain by Richard Dansky, but I'm not really a horror guy.
posted by adekllny at 5:56 PM on June 1, 2023


Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado is a collection of horror and horror-adjacent short stories. They are beautiful and some are suuuuper creepy in that "everything is normal but slightly skewed in a way that feels tense and ominous" sort of way.
posted by dazedandconfused at 6:04 PM on June 1, 2023 [2 favorites]


The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells. It’s the only book that’s ever made me afraid to walk home alone from the subway.
posted by holborne at 6:05 PM on June 1, 2023


Adding to my previous answer: The Girl in the Road does have scenes of sexual violence.
posted by moonmilk at 6:09 PM on June 1, 2023


Universal Harvester by John Darnielle felt that way to me. It's not exactly a horror story, but it's not NOT a horror story. It makes you reconsider the line between plausible and implausible, with chilling implications for your own life. (Wolf in White Van by the same author covers some pretty similar territory.)
posted by rikschell at 6:12 PM on June 1, 2023 [4 favorites]


High-Rise by J.G. Ballard - a nightmare that could be a reality.
posted by XtineHutch at 6:16 PM on June 1, 2023


Negative Space, BR Yeager. No sexual violence but it does have everything else you might want a content warning for.

Alice Knott, Blake Butler.
posted by xxx9038709992203 at 6:18 PM on June 1, 2023


Some great suggestions here, I'll add you might really like Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash. It's hard to explain why it's so eerie, because it really is about a college wrestler obsessed with wrestling, a thing I do not care about at all, but I read it in one sitting and found it wonderfully unsettling and strange. It dips into the surreal more than the supernatural, though, without spoilers, I think there's a fair amount left to the reader to decide what's actually going on.

(Also, I know what "obsessive college athlete dude novel" might sound like, but I don't remember there being any sort of sexual violence in the book.)
posted by jameaterblues at 6:19 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]


The book that immediately comes to mind is "I Am Thinking of Ending Things" by Iain Reid.

Other books from different genres that can also be plausible answers:

"The School for Good Mothers" by Jessamine Chan had that vibe for me.

And in a very different way, Jose Saramago's "Blindness" (which I am not a huge fan of, but it definitely had that "slipped into a nightmare" feeling for me).

"Recursion" by Blake Crouch -- the first part of it (before it becomes more clear what is going on) more so than the later parts of the book.

As someone who loves "Master and Margarita" and likes "The Ministry of Fear" a lot, I don't think they are the same "vibe" at all.

If you are interested in films that also hit that note, I recommend "After Hours."
posted by virve at 6:39 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]


The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
posted by fox problems at 6:47 PM on June 1, 2023 [2 favorites]


I haven't read your example books, but your descriptions immediately reminded me of The Third Hotel by Laura Van Den Berg, in which a woman arrives in Cuba for a horror film festival and is surprised to find her husband there, on account of his being recently deceased. The book itself is not a horror novel but the writing is delightfully, precisely weird and the plotting is refreshingly resistant to providing any sort of actual explanations.
posted by eponym at 6:56 PM on June 1, 2023 [2 favorites]


I'm trying to think of books that match your two examples in style as well as nightmarishness and suspensefullness.

Many of Patricia Highsmith's novels might suit you, I'd start with Strangers on a Train. The Ripley novels might suit as well.

The Expendable Man by Dorothy Hughes. Highly recommend this. If you are going to read it, avoid spoilers beforehand. Other Dorothy Hughes novels are also good, although not as nightmarish. In a Lonely Place is great.
posted by riddley at 7:13 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]


Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
posted by synecdoche at 7:37 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]


This sounds like Shirley Jackson’s ouvre?
posted by eviemath at 9:29 PM on June 1, 2023


I wouldn’t call it nightmarish per se but it is a full immersion in dream logic and the twists and turns / context changes that make sense only in dreams: The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro.
posted by sesquipedalia at 9:30 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]


Maybe Jeef VanderMeer's Southern Reach triology would hit the spot?
posted by Harald74 at 9:34 PM on June 1, 2023 [1 favorite]


You would probably love The Memory Police, Transit, and Ice.
posted by derrinyet at 9:52 PM on June 1, 2023


Foe by Iain Reid? Unreliable narrator for sure.
posted by dearadeline at 10:18 PM on June 1, 2023


If you haven’t already read Kafka, read The Trial.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 4:42 AM on June 2, 2023 [2 favorites]


Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy has a certain nightmarish quality. I'll probably re-read the first two volumes someday, but not the third.
posted by Agave at 5:16 AM on June 2, 2023


A looooooooooooot of Iris Murdoch has that dislocated extra-realist texture, and I'd particularly recommend A Word Child for a slowly unfolding dream car crash feel.

On a totally different note you might try Ubik. For that zesty fresh extended prolongation of consciousness you won't know you needed until it's gone, seven out of ten avatars of midcentury commercial alienation recommend UBIK. It's also a floor wax!
posted by implied_otter at 5:44 AM on June 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


Peter Watts writes very dense science fiction that is absolutely nightmarish. Claustrophobic and reality-warping. Try Blindsight or Starfish.
posted by adamrice at 6:17 AM on June 2, 2023


Both Fever Dream and Little Worlds by Samanta Schweblin fit this description.

Seconding John Darnielle, Iain Reid, and Jeff VanderMeer.
posted by catoclock at 6:20 AM on June 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


Andi Watson's The Book Tour evoked this kind of nightmarish experience for me. If you don't mind a graphic novel.
posted by Athanassiel at 8:31 AM on June 2, 2023


The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell. It will haunt you with visions of the reality of the Great Depression in Northern England.
posted by Enid Lareg at 9:06 AM on June 2, 2023


Dunno about books like The Ministry of Fear. I've read it, but that was a long time ago; nowadays this title makes me think of the movie, which I like to screen every couple of years just because it's so weird. (And if we're talking film, that's what I also say about The Lost Weekend although no real similarities, except both made towards the end of the war.)

As for Rogue Male, however, I've got a good one, in fact a whole series. Adam Hall (a pen-name) wrote almost twenty books featuring a British secret agent, Quiller. One of the oldest web-sites I know, Quiller.net, was an invaluable resource but unfortunately, it seems to have expired recently. However, this Internet Archive snapshot of the site is from April. I hope dues are paid or whatever, so it comes back online.
posted by Rash at 10:00 AM on June 2, 2023


Ohhh boy do I have the perfect recommendation for you: Kazuo Ishuguro's WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS

It is fucking wild and nightmarish and has an unreliable narrator and nothing supernatural and a shattering emotional climax which I STILL obsess about because it is so exactly on the verge of making sense? But it doesn't quite? And regardless I feel thoroughly satisfied and however I obsessively pick at it trying to figure it out and nevertheless I want to clutch it to my heart and yet it haunts me, still, two years after reading it, because it's just outside my grasp.

The book pulls of so many neat tricks at once that it's difficult to tell you about it properly. On one level, it's like a photo negative of a detective novel: there's a mystery and there's a detective and there's an investigation but all we get told are the details and feelings and stories and interactions that happen AROUND it. It contributes to the dreamlike feel of the book. The novel is just... perpendicular to the supposed detective story the narrator purports it to be.

What I appreciated most was, no matter how dreamlike or nightmarish or unlikely the story got, there was a true core to it. It was THERE. I can't always be sure what exactly it is but it is there!

Do not read the reviews. If you read the reviews do not believe them. Fuck the haters (Ishiguro himself included): this is the best book I've ever read in my life and I will be thinking of it till the day I die.
posted by MiraK at 10:55 AM on June 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


And hey if you want a movie suggestion, watch WAKE IN FRIGHT (1971) - an Australian movie which developed a cult following in the 1990s. There's a quote by a NYT reviewer called Roger Greenspun from 1972 which describes the atmosphere of this movie very well: "...a general foreboding that crystalizes often enough into particular terror and that is not quite like anything else I can remember feeling at the movies. Certain science-fiction films come closest to it, especially those in which some evil alien presence has taken over a community that to all outward appearances remains normal—with only the slightest most fugitive hint that something somehow is hideously wrong."

Again, nothing supernatural happens in this movie. It's just a terrifying story about a schoolteacher who descends into debauchery and despair after finding himself stranded in a brutal, menacing town in outback Australia. It is not technically horror but goddamn THIS is how horror movies should be.
posted by MiraK at 11:09 AM on June 2, 2023


The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
posted by polecat at 2:49 PM on June 2, 2023


Maybe Jeef VanderMeer's Southern Reach triology would hit the spot?

I was thinking more his series of Borne > The Strange Bird > Dead Astronauts. Most of Christopher Priest's novels have the quality of a dream where things have gone wrong and you don't know why (especially the Dream Archipelago novels and stories). A lot of William Vollman's writing fits this bill, in an incredibly digressive way. The ur-example of nightmare book in modern novels is, of course, Finnegans Wake.
posted by aught at 7:10 PM on June 2, 2023


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