Gordon Midgley - The Fall of the House of Usher (2017)

During the whole of the dull, dark, and soundless eighties Yuletide I was occupied by a Christmas annual's feature on "The Master of the Macabre". Dark, monochrome illustrations and an overview of Poe's more notorious tales held me fast and began my lifelong relationship with the House of Usher.

Captivated by Poe's ability to move seamlessly from suspense and terror to genre-subverting parody and pitch-dark humour, I knew I'd found 'my author'. Giving the reader enough detail to stimulate their imagination but remaining sufficiently ambiguous to ensure they worked towards their own personal interpretation.

Suitably inspired, in the early 90s I attempted to write a rock album based on The House but bailed out after only a few songs with an inescapable sense of having tried to reinvent the wheel.

Several years later I heard a completion of Debussy's opera and became immersed in the psychology and symbolism of his era which led me to re-evaluate what The House meant to me as an adult, and before too long I began to form 'scenes' in my mind's eye.

Whether the world needed another interpretation of 'Usher' was not the issue:
I needed to respond to a very singular summons.

It was time.

The time is now.