Well, moderately sane. 2020 brought with it untold tests of my restraint and ability to actually remain indoors which surprised me as I typically have no difficulty achieving that. Human behavior fights confinement and once not leaving my house was the rule and not by choice I could feel myself shifting into rebellion.

Despite my brain’s intentions, I did manage to spend most of the months from March to now indoors with only small, calculated risks. That malingering gloom between pandemic and US presidential election anxiety meant that I didn’t accomplish all I intended in this glorious time of limited social engagement (in fact I supplanted physical interaction with a grueling Zoom schedule I’ve since recoiled from) but 2020 was spoiled for choice when it comes to books.

It’s something of a running joke that I can’t leave a Zoom without recommending at least 2 books now. I used literature to fight my desire to venture out into the world, to haunt cafes or desolate curry houses. Below I’ve collected 12 of the best books I read in 2020, with little focus on ranking them or divulging which I think is “the book of the year.”

Reading is an adventure, or it should be. I hope you find some of that in my recommendations.

Fiction

The Snuggly Satyricon translated by Brian Stableford

This collection of short stories curated and translated by Brian Stableford for Snuggly Books solves the age-old problem of Gaius Petronius’ satirical novel The Satyricon not involving a single satyr. Myth and folklore simmered beneath the surface of decadent literature in the 19th century and was kept alive in the movement’s direct descendants well into the 20th. This collection explores the seedy passions and despair of satyrs crumbling in the modern age, and at times the shift from playfulness to self-destruction invokes a nostalgic discomfort.

Notable is Anatole France’s two contributions to the selection, proving that his infatuation with the art and mythic nobility of satyrs consumed his work beyond The Revolt of the Angels. It also makes me long for Stableford doing his own retranslation of Revolt to save legions of Satanists from buying poorly formatted editions elsewhere.

Evil Roots: Killer Tales of Botanical Gothic

“Weird fiction” is the definitive literary curse among Neo-Decadents these days and I list this collection from the British Library Tales of the Weird aware it’s blasphemous. Despite the label thrust upon fiction that doesn’t conform to the melancholy seriousness of prestige lit, Evil Roots earns my praise by delving into the horror of the mundane - plants.

Carnivorous orchids, poisonous women brought to life through fiendish experiments, creeping and all-consuming molds fill this collection with an unsettling reappraisal of the everyday backdrop of life we easily take for granted. I’ve always been unnerved by the hidden ferocity of plants, particularly vines and pea tendrils that seem to move in real-time to seek purchase and consume objects around them. Even that is brought to life here, making me glad I spent most of the year well out of the reach of lurking leafy predators.

The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun

It’s a tragedy this novel by Yun Ko-eun (first published in Korean in 2013 but translated in 2020) is absent from the endless lists of year-end greats circulated by more mainstream arbiters of taste. So it’s here on my list in all it’s blazing feminist glory.

The Disaster Tourist takes Korean corporate culture and exploitative business to task through the life of Yona, a 10-year veteran of Jungle, a tourism company that assembles packages based around natural disasters. Did a volcano decimate your country? Jungle won’t waste the opportunity to send flocks of Korean tourists there to gawk at the horrors of underfunded recovery.

Yona’s job is to set up these packages and for years had done her job adequately until her boss assaults her in an elevator. Everyone knows it happens and due to the nature of Jungle’s corporate culture, she has almost zero recourse to take action against him. This moment abruptly sets in motion a series of events that Yona’s eyes to the true nature of her company and the terrible acts they commit not only against their employees but people in disaster zones they capitalize on.

The Acephalic Imperial by Damian Murphy

Whatever you do, don’t ask what The Acephalic Imperial means. Damian Murphy’s mastery of occult tales is on full display in this unrelenting mindfuck of a novella rife with discordant realities, unexplained rituals, and unconventional employment. How far would you go for an easy paycheck when your appraisal of living well is simply unhindered?

Even in a year where I had difficulty focusing I was sucked into the contemplation and temporal mesmeric of the Acephalic Imperial and can’t explain the otherness that consumed my thoughts. You have to read it to understand, but I doubt your take will be anywhere near mine.

Costumes of the Living by Gaurav Monga

Clothes are the remnants of our lives. For some, they’re all there is in life. Costumes of the Living is the first work by Gaurav Monga I’ve read and immediately I was drawn to his consideration of clothing as a memory of its owner. This series of vignettes plays around central themes for each section, twisting and weaving themselves through the fabric of existence. Clothes determine our status, our passions, our sense of self yet we discard them as easily as we buy new shirts. When we die, our loved ones tend the fragments of our existence, dispersing them across relatives or thrift shops. Yet those were once ours, and once the armor we wore to proclaim ourselves as living.

Monsieur de Bougrelon and Other Stories by Jean Lorrain translated by Brian Stableford

Finding a complete version of Monsieur de Bougrelon in English was impossible prior to Stableford’s translation in this unexplored collection of Jean Lorrain’s work. There is another English translation but I encourage you to seek out Snuggly’s version instead as Stableford’s dedication to preserving it outshines the Spurl edition from 2016. Stableford has also made a great deal of progress translating the bulk of Lorrain’s work and in my mind is an authority on his style. Much like Brendan King’s work on J.K. Huysmans.

The eponymous Monsieur occupies a rarified place among Lorrain’s protagonists and to me depicts a cracked and painted vision of someone the author possibly could have become had he not died at a relatively young age due to complications from ether drinking in his youth. Monsieur de Bougrelon is a specter of dandyism and the bone-deep saturation of decadence. He weaves tales of faded opulence and obsession that captivate the unwitting French tourists who find themselves haunted by Bougrelon as they explore Amsterdam.

Bougrelon is the funerary dirge of decadence, one Lorrain personified and succame to less than a decade after its publication. Among his stories, Monsieur de Bourgrelon is perhaps more essential and infinitely more intoxicating than Nightmares of an Ether Drinker but requires his ether-riddled decay to function. This is a novel of melancholy and nostalgia and of Lorrain’s awareness of his own festering legacy.

Non-Fiction

Hiccups in Paradise: The Fiction of Justin Isis and Alienation by Colby Smith

Justin Isis is the unrelenting drill sergeant and quixotic progenitor of what Neo-Decadence means in the emerging literary scene I merely attempt to be apart of. His fiction captures a life adrift and isolated from the comforting belonging anyone who hasn’t lived a life spanning the globe will struggle to understand.

But Colby Smith gets it in this essay turned chapbook published in a limited run by Snuggly Books (I know, there’s a lot of Snuggly on this list but for good reason.) I list this here because I am perpetually astounded by the insight and desire to pick apart reality that Colby possesses, and I know he will be an unrelenting force himself the more of his work is read.

Honestly, I am quite fond of both Justin and Colby and this was my true introduction to Colby’s tenacity for which I’m glad and inspired by.

Now I hope neither of them read this while I plonk away at a manifesto contemplating my swath of the American south. Colby and I collaborated on another Neo-Decadent manifesto regarding video games that will appear in a perpetually expanding collection out sometime this year.

A Curious History of Sex by Kate Lister

I first stumbled upon Kate Lister’s work through her Twitter account Whores of Yore where she posts raunchy photos from history, explanations of humanity’s verbose desire to profane, and research into the complex history of sex and desire. This book is a testament to the work she does.

Serious research and history don’t have to be lifeless and Lister pushes against the drudgery of a male-dominated view of the world through humor and unabashed insight. I’d never considered the etymology of genital slang but thanks to this book I am now the keeper of the knowledge that the word “cunt” is the only slang term for the vagina that doesn’t require a penis to define it. That definitely changed my consideration of the word and is only part of what makes this an absolute must-read for anyone challenging the concept of sex, gender, and sexuality humans perpetually get caught in their feelings about.

The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs The United States of America by Eric Cervini

So, I absolutely bought this book because of a Facebook ad. Never in my life has a serious research project fallen into my lap through the sort of book commercials you’d sometimes find just before prime-time on cable TV. It seemed so serious yet marketed so strangely I simply had to know.

The result was an intense week spent learning the history denied to queer people in the United States. The fight for LGBTQ+ rights is frequently and erroneously depicted as having begun during the Stonewall riots in June of 1969, but for over a decade prior a real and unyielding legal fight was taking place in the Washington D.C. gay community. (And even earlier, people have been rather clear on their desire to be treated fairly just for existing since time immemorial.)

This is a book of white, privileged activism and in no way takes away from the power and fury of trans-led protests in the ‘60s and beyond, but it is part of the greater tapestry of the ongoing and necessary pursuit of justice in this country — simply one initiated by the kind of gay man who is now telling trans kids to be less weird and socialist. Absolutely not what I was expecting when I ordered this from an ad while taking a break from my own transgender socialist degeneracy.

Niche: a Memoir in Pastiche by Momus (Nick Currie)

Momus’ life is so fit for an endless series of adaptations, novels, and studies that it certainly would be difficult to find a frame through which to observe the boundless and unyielding art of a single man. This is perhaps why when Momus sat down to work on his memoir he opted to write it from the perspective of authors throughout literary history, rather than his own.

Yes, this is truly a memoir in pastiche and at times the shift of perspective and even construct as Momus expands upon his life is jarring. Nevertheless, make it through the first chapter and you’ll find the melody beneath this mind-bending presentation.

Momus is best known as a musician but is an accomplished author, artist, and general art piece who is as controversial to some as he is inspiring to others. It’s no surprise to me that many writers I converse with now were also fans of Momus’ Click Opera LiveJournal in the early 2000s.

Speak of the Devil: How the Satanic Temple is Changing the Way We Talk About Religion by Joseph P. Laycock

The Satanic Temple is a staggeringly young religion, and even in its 7 brief years of life has met and begun to contend with the pressures and triumphs of religious organizations much, much older. Dr. Joseph P. Laycock is a professor of religious studies at Texas State University who makes a study of emerging religions. TST in his opinion is not only a religion (despite what people hung up on outmoded definitions of that term that require belief in the supernatural think) but altering the landscape of religion itself.

Laycock is fair but firm in his analysis of The Satanic Temple and the book is a go-to for insight into where the organization intends to go and the hurdles it has faced thus far. Few people can paint as complete a picture of why TST matters as Laycock does here.

Darkly: Blackness and America’s Gothic Soul by Leila Taylor

Goth isn’t just for pale British post-punks. That’s a fact often missed in the broader conversation of the goth subculture and certainly by people within it. Leila Taylor’s origins are deep within the swell of that frequently misunderstood ‘80s and ‘90s music scene. Through her experiences, Taylor shifts the focus away from Siouxsie Sioux and onto the lived gothic history of Black people in the United States. Goth is more than music, it is the soul of a culture expressing pain, frustration, and hope in a grim but self-empowering way.

Taylor’s childhood in Detroit sets the perfect backdrop for her foray into the gothic core of American culture and aids her in shedding light on the aspects of the Black experience white people have either never cared to learn about or acknowledge.