Recently, Entertainment Weekly released a list of the 22 “most important goths in pop culture.” Of course the list included perennial favorites like The Craft’s Nancy Downs, NCIS’ Abby Sciuto, and South Park’s goth kids. It also included some surprises like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Lisbeth Salander and Adventure Time’s Marceline. Nonetheless, the fact that this list published in February 2024 also proved something even more important—the gothic subculture is well established as a permanent fixture that stands in antithesis to mainstream culture, no matter the stereotypes that the media and pop culture continues to perpetuate. That makes Lol Tolhurst’s historical memoir Goth: A History—Tolhurst’s follow-up book to his memoir Cured—even more important. Tolhurst details the early years of the some of the most important goths that the Entertainment Weekly ignored—The Cure, but he also provides historical, artistic, and even psychological contexts for the subculture that help those unfamiliar with the subculture overcome negative, and sometimes even cartoonish, stereotypes.
Tolhurst’s approach to explaining the gothic subculture manifests in a unique trifecta—literature, music, and personal experience. He does not delve much into the concept of fashion—a hallmark of the subculture that makes it easily identifiable. For those who love horror and gothic literature, the book opens with a gentle literary criticism of works like Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and Shelley’s Frankenstein. Tolhurst also reflects on the influence of Poe, Stoker, Baudelaire, and Lovecraft—not only on the subculture itself, but also on his own relationship with literature and, eventually, art and the world. These powerful insights about the role of literature in both the gothic subculture and the author’s life are a testament to literature’s legacy. However, these examples also remind us that, for many goths, the stereotypes need not apply. As Tolhurst explains, “Goth is often portrayed in a comical way by the media” because that portrayal makes it “overtly two-dimensional and easily digestible for those who will never comprehend it.”
Tolhurst explicates another facet of the gothic subculture which is frequently overlooked or ignored entirely and instead replaced with images of brutality and grotesqueness—the humanity. Specifically, Tolhurst examines the subculture’s humanity by dissecting its authenticity, which, according to Tolhurst, comes from the “human spirit” and its need “to express its deepest meaning” in order “to be able to live in peace, even just to exist sometimes.” For Tolhurst and The Cure’s other members, this authenticity came from their need to escape the small English town in which they grew up. Thus, for goths like The Cure, environment was just as much an influence on the development of their psyche and intellects as anything as else. Tolhurst explains this concisely, stating “Sometimes where you come from is as integral to who you are as anything else.” He clarifies that late-Seventies England “was not a great place to live,” and as the book progresses, we see how music became the gateway to escape—physically and mentally, even emotionally—for all of The Cure’s members.
To reinforce the ideas about the humanity that is integral to the gothic subculture, Tolhurst emphasizes that Goth is truly a subculture which encourages exploration. He advocates that “Modern life eschews looking too closely at things for any length of time, especially if they are in any way disturbing.” He also asserts that his “life in Goth served as a kind of communal reverse meditation.” The subculture encouraged an exploration of darkness in books, films, music, and art, and for Goths it provided an escape “for a brief moment to better understand the place” in which they floated “now a little more liberated.” Tolhurst also emphasizes principles that movements like the Order of Good Death have recently espoused—an acknowledgment of “the dark side” that “can bring forth a new way of being in the world and, in some cases, new life.”
For those who participate in the gothic subculture primarily for the music, Goth: A History provides lengthy exposes of some of the genre’s most well-known bands. Joy Division fans will find a lengthy recollection of Tolhurst’s brief encounters with Joy Division’s ill-fated lead singer, Ian Curtis. Those who have groups like Bauhaus to thank for their dark entry into the gothic realm will find a hilarious story about how Iggy Pop introduced the band to New York City’s underworld, and those who followed Cocteau Twins’ into eternity’s deep waves will find Tolhurst’s nod to the band’s influence on the subculture enticing. Tolhurst’s recollections of band after band that helped fortify the subculture create a brilliant playlist that allow Elder Goths to relive their youth and new Goths to explore the artists who initially dared to deviate and take the darker path.
What is refreshing about Tolhurst’s book is that it emphasizes another of the subculture’s key components that mainstream outlets almost entirely ignore—the community. The stereotype of the goth-as-loner is not applicable to the scene portrayed in Tolhurst’s book. Rather, the subculture is a place where inclusivity thrives in clubs like The Batcave, where deathrockers dance beside flannel-clad normies. The book’s sentiments about community echo those in the German documentary Mein Leben in Schwarz (My Life in Black) (which is now sadly unavailable on YouTube), and those sentiments continue to be exemplified each year at festivals like Wave Gotik Treffen and Whitby Goth Weekend.
Is goth still relevant in 2024? Of course, and Tolhurst’s book is a testament as to why. He explains that goth possesses a “duality” that is simultaneously “beautiful and human and unearthly all at the same time”—key characteristics that ensure the subculture’s relevance. Tolhurst also describes goth as “the last true alternative outsider subculture” and a “type of cultural resistance.” Goths like Black Friday—who boasts just over 689,000 YouTube followers—continue to influence younger generations of Goths by encouraging them to celebrate their individuality and find a community in which they are safe and affirmed. Bands like Depeche Mode and The Cure continue to leave their mark on the music industry by impacting contemporary gothic/EDM bands like Scheitan, Vandal Moon, and Matte Blvck.
One-third literary criticism, one-third musical journey, and one-third personal testimony, Lol Tolhurst’s Goth: A History is a revolutionary text exploring the subculture the mainstream loves to tease and ministers love to hate. Poignant, honest, and thoughtful, Goth: A History has the potential to make Goths and non-Goths alike want to revisit Frankenstein and then find the nearest goth night for hours of great music and dancing.
Goth: A History, by Lol Tolhurst. New York, New York: Hachette Books, September 2023. 256 pages. $29.00, hardcover.
Nicole Yurcaba (Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian American of Hutsul/Lemko origin. A poet and essayist, her poems and reviews have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Atlanta Review, Seneca Review, New Eastern Europe, and Ukraine’s Euromaidan Press. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University, and is the Humanities Coordinator at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College. She also serves as a guest book reviewer for Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and Southern Review of Books.
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