Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey (2002)

To flip through his Edwardian portraits of impending, queer doom is to feel a sliver of ticklish ice in your belly: What kind of man makes an amusing alphabet series of children's deaths? This compendium of Gorey interviews helps unravel the studied eccentric, who died in 2000. ''For some reason my mission in life is to make everybody as uneasy as possible,'' he tells one reporter. These top-drawer excerpts reveal the writer-illustrator's influences (Balanchine ballets, Lewis Carroll, Jane Austen, and Dallas, to name but a few) and upbringing (no, he was never lured into garages by strange people, he assures Dick Cavett). More interesting even than the making of the artist is the work itself. Gorey's stories expose an extreme wit, a self-effacing humor, and a curiosity about all things curious.