Blue Light of the Screen

Book excerpt: Blue Light of the Screen is about what it means to be afraid Ñ about immersion, superstition, delusion, and the things that keep us up at night. A creative-critical memoir of the authorÕs obsession with the horror genre, Blue Light of the Screen embeds its criticism of horror within a larger personal story of growing up in a devoutly Catholic family, overcoming suicidal depression, uncovering intergenerational trauma, and encountering real and imagined ghosts. As Cronin writes, she positions herself as a protagonist who is haunted by what she watches and reads, like an antiquarian in an M.R. James ghost story whose sense of reality unravels through her study of arcane texts and cursed archives. In this way, Blue Light of the Screen tells the story of the authorÕs conversion from skepticism to faith in the supernatural. Part memoir, part ghost story, and part critical theory, Blue Light of the Screen is not just a book about horror, but a work of horror itself.