Today, it is a pleasure to welcome to History…the Interesting Bits, Dr Tim Rideout. I have known Tim since 2017, when Heroines of the Tudor World came out. He is the ‘go to’ person if you need an interviewer for your literary festival and chaired a panel, which included me, at the Newark Book Festival a few years ago. His first book, ‘Gothic Precarity: Fear and Anxiety in Twenty-First-Century Fiction’ comes out next month.
So, Tim dropped by to tell me a little bit about it.
Announcing Gothic Precarity by Tim Rideout
I’m thrilled to announce the upcoming publication of my new book, ‘Gothic Precarity: Fear and Anxiety in Twenty-First-Century Fiction’, which will be released on 15th September by the University of Wales Press as part of their excellent Gothic Literary Studies series.
This book emerges from a sustained engagement with contemporary fiction that situates the Gothic not simply as a mode of terror or horror, but as a rich cultural register through which the anxieties of our time—social, economic, ecological, and psychological—are exposed and decoded. Over the past two decades, the Gothic has flourished in fiction as a form uniquely attuned to chronic unease, existential threat, and the slow violence of neoliberalism, climate crisis, and systemic collapse.
Why ‘Gothic Precarity’?
The term precarity has become a central keyword in contemporary critical theory, capturing the conditions of instability and insecurity that define life in the early twenty-first century. In my book, I argue that the Gothic offers a distinctive aesthetic and affective vocabulary for exploring those conditions—particularly the entanglement of fear, anxiety, and dread as they permeate everyday life.
Drawing on a wide range of works from authors such as Yiyun Li, Ahmed Saadawi, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Diane Cook, and others, Gothic Precarity considers how fiction engages with themes such as economic precarity, racialised violence, climate trauma, and ontological uncertainty. These texts do more than simply represent fear—they perform it, immersing readers in atmospheres of claustrophobia, dread, and instability that mirror our own precarious moments.
Gothic Forms for Precarious Times
Rather than treating the Gothic as a genre of the past, the book rethinks it as a living, evolving mode of cultural critique. It shows how contemporary authors adapt and reconfigure Gothic conventions—hauntings, uncanny spaces, spectral figures, disrupted chronologies—to address the deep unease that defines much of the twenty-first-century experience.
At its heart, Gothic Precarity is a study of how fiction helps us feel, name, and navigate the crises of our time. It’s a book about fear—but also about how fear can become a means of political and ethical awareness, a platform for counter-narratives.
About the book:
Ours is an age of precarity, as fear and anxiety have come to define the twenty-first century. Politically, economically and socially, the neoliberal orthodoxy has become globally dominant and, as a direct result, traditional frameworks of protection have been dismantled, while existential insecurity is increasingly passed from nations and institutions to individuals. In the meantime, the Gothic mode of fiction is experiencing a new ascendancy, strengthening the argument that the Gothic represents the best literary mode with which to decode this age of precarity. In this context, the present study offers a groundbreaking examination of the Gothic mode’s conceptual affinity with notions of neoliberal precarity. Exploring twenty-first-century Gothic fiction’s engagement with the most pressing issues of our age, it considers the oppression and existential entrapment experienced by marginalised populations in the provincial China of the late 1970s, and observes a modern-day Frankenstein’s creature occasion violence and destruction across Baghdad post the 2003 Iraq War. The reader will also discover vampires (representatives of a voracious, toxic economic model) in an alternate Mexico City, encounter a nomadic group traversing the only remaining wilderness in a near-future North America devastated as a result of the climate crisis, and be haunted by a spectral migrant who died in their efforts to flee political oppression in Vietnam.
Pre-Order and More
‘Gothic Precarity: Fear and Anxiety in Twenty-First-Century Fiction’ will be available from the 15th September via the University of Wales Press, Amazon, Waterstones and major retailers. I’ll be sharing more updates, events, and discussions around the book in the coming weeks.
For academics, students, and readers interested in contemporary literature, the Gothic, affect theory, or cultural responses to crisis, I hope this book offers both insight and provocation.
Thank you for reading—and stay tuned for more!
About the author:
Dr Timothy Rideout is a doctoral graduate of the University of Lincoln. He has had a long and successful career in health services leadership.
*
My Books:
Signed, dedicated copies of all my books are available through my online store.
Out now: Scotland’s Medieval Queens
Scotland’s history is dramatic, violent and bloody. Being England’s northern neighbour has never been easy. Scotland’s queens have had to deal with war, murder, imprisonment, political rivalries and open betrayal. They have loved and lost, raised kings and queens, ruled and died for Scotland. From St Margaret, who became one of the patron saints of Scotland, to Elizabeth de Burgh and the dramatic story of the Scottish Wars of Independence, to the love story and tragedy of Joan Beaufort, to Margaret of Denmark and the dawn of the Renaissance, Scotland’s Medieval Queens have seen it all. This is the story of Scotland through their eyes.
‘Scotland’s Medieval Queens gives a thorough grounding in the history of the women who ruled Scotland at the side of its kings, often in the shadows, but just as interesting in their lives beyond the spotlight. It’s not a subject that has been widely covered, and Sharon is a pioneer in bringing that information into accessible history.’ Elizabeth Chadwick (New York Times bestselling author)
Available now from Amazon and Pen and Sword Books
Also by Sharon Bennett Connolly:
Heroines of the Tudor World tells the stories of the most remarkable women from European history in the time of the Tudor dynasty, 1485-1603. These are the women who ruled, the women who founded dynasties, the women who fought for religious freedom, their families and love. Heroines of the Tudor World is now available from Amberley Publishing and Amazon UK. Women of the Anarchy demonstrates how Empress Matilda and Matilda of Boulogne, unable to wield a sword themselves, were prime movers in this time of conflict and lawlessness. It shows how their strengths, weaknesses, and personal ambitions swung the fortunes of war one way – and then the other. Available from Bookshop.org, Amberley Publishing and Amazon UK. King John’s Right-Hand Lady: The Story of Nicholaa de la Haye is the story of a truly remarkable lady, the hereditary constable of Lincoln Castle and the first woman in England to be appointed sheriff in her own right. Available from all good bookshops Pen & Sword Books, bookshop.org and Amazon.
Defenders of the Norman Crown: The Rise and Fall of the Warenne Earls of Surrey tells the fascinating story of the Warenne dynasty, from its origins in Normandy, through the Conquest, Magna Carta, the wars and marriages that led to its ultimate demise in the reign of Edward III. Available from Pen & Sword Books, Amazon in the UK and US, and Bookshop.org. Ladies of Magna Carta: Women of Influence in Thirteenth Century England looks into the relationships of the various noble families of the 13th century, and how they were affected by the Barons’ Wars, Magna Carta and its aftermath; the bonds that were formed and those that were broken. It is now available in paperback and hardback from Pen & Sword, Amazon, and Bookshop.org. Heroines of the Medieval World tells the stories of some of the most remarkable women from Medieval history, from Eleanor of Aquitaine to Julian of Norwich. Available now from Amberley Publishing and Amazon, and Bookshop.org. Silk and the Sword: The Women of the Norman Conquest traces the fortunes of the women who had a significant role to play in the momentous events of 1066. Available now from Amazon, Amberley Publishing, and Bookshop.org.
Alternate Endings: An anthology of historical fiction short stories including Long Live the King… which is my take what might have happened had King John not died in October 1216. Available in paperback and kindle from Amazon.
Podcast:
Have a listen to the A Slice of Medieval podcast, which I co-host with Historical fiction novelist Derek Birks. Derek and I welcome guests, such as Bernard Cornwell and Michael Jecks, and discuss a wide range of topics in medieval history, from significant events to the personalities involved.
Every episode is also now available on YouTube.
*
Don’t forget! Signed and dedicated copies of all my books are available through my online store.
For forthcoming online and in-person talks, please check out my Events Page.
You can be the first to read new articles by clicking the ‘Follow’ button, liking our Facebook page or joining me on Twitter, Threads, Bluesky and Instagram.
*
©2025 Sharon Bennett Connolly FRHistS and Dr Tim Rideout
History... the interesting bits! 