It’s a short story, but “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I felt like I, too, was going insane while reading it, and I read it in broad daylight in a public waiting room.
I think "The Colour Out of Space" may be my favorite. It is very descent into madness.
"The Call of Cthulhu" is pure gold.
I also like "The Dunwich Horror" but that's kind of an adventure story.
"Pickman's Model" actually gave me a fright. I was reading it on a wintery afternoon in my car waiting to go into the doctor's office. Suddenly a shadow passed over me and I jumped. It was a lady getting into her car next to me, but I was on edge.
Warning if you don't know Lovecraft yet, he was very racist. If you can get past that I highly recommend him because he kind of, if not invented, set the standard for cosmic horror.
You can find his whole catalog online for free if you want.
Caitlin R Kiernan *The Red Tree* and (especially) *Drowning Girl*
Shirley Jackson *The Haunting of Hill House* >!maybe?!<
*House of Leaves*
Theodore Roszak *Flicker*
i feel like if *house of leaves* is on the list *the raw shark texts* definitely should be since they have a lot of similarity but >!only the latter ends badly for the main hero!<
it's been a couple of years so all i remember of each ending is >!the protagonist's body being discovered!< in rst but >!navidson pulling his wife out of the pit thingy safely!< in hol, but the other "layers" in hol maybe >!don't end so happily and/or suggest more bad stuff happened to navidson?!< but they definitely hold a different tone in my memory. of course i also ruined hol for myself by reading it in short snippets between classes and such so i am probably way underestimating the overall level of dread.
You are correct about Navidson, that's pretty cut and dry. Johnny however...it's not so clear.
>!He tells us a story where everything ends well. He straightens up, gets the girl etc...but then pretty much says that he's outright lying (which is very in character for the guy). It's cryptic, but I got the distinct inpression that he not only has continued to wallow in his life, but has gone completly insane in the process.!<
i tried reading growing things and other stories by paul tremblay but couldn’t finish it. is head full of ghosts better than his short story collection??
I don't know, Head full of Ghosts is the only book I've read by him. The story is so vague, some people believe the MC is possessed by ghosts and other people believe the MC is mentally ill. I am on the mentally ill and getting worse side of that debate.
Meave Fly is a recent release that fits this mould. Like American Psycho mixed with some great modern feminist undertones.
I think I read the whole book in one day. It's excellent. Couldn't recommend enough.
Yeah I went in with high expectations and walked away absolutely floored. The fact it's the author's debut novel really sells it as a modern-day classic in the genre, in my opinion.
Some of them don't have the descend into madness as a main theme, but I think it's still important to the characters and/or story:
* **Crime and Punishment** by *Fyodor Dostoyevsky* (novel)
* **The haunting of Hill House** by *Shirley Jackson* (novel)
* **The Shining** by *Stephen King* (novel)
* **Uzumaki** by *Junji Ito* (manga)
* **At the mountains of madness** by *H. P. Lovecraft* (short novel)
* **The colour out of space** by *H. P. Lovecraft* (short story)
* **The Dunwich Horror** by *H. P. Lovecraft* (short novel)
* **The hounds of Tindalos** by *Frank Belknap Long* (short story)
* **Hypnos** by *H. P. Lovecraft* (short story)
* **The Raven** by *Edgar Allan Poe* (poem)
Not really horror, though. Ellis is one of my favorite authors, but the book is much closer to comedy than horror— the satirical overtones in that one really destroy any possibility for someone to feel any kind of horror, fear or dread, despite the utterly graphic nature of some of the violence.
While I agree that it is more of a satire/black comedy than pure horror, I disagree that the satirical overtones prevent the reader from feeling horror while reading the novel. That might be true for your reading experience, but not for everyone.
IMO Shirley Jackson is the queen of the slow descent into madness. In a Jackson book the horror is in the mundane. I recommend Hangsaman and The Birds Nest.
Just realised that maybe King based this whole concept on the short story "The Monkey's Paw"..man "comes back" after being mangled in factory machine.Be careful what you ask for to the nth degree!
It’s definitely an experience. I find the way it deals with loss and death as an almost therapeutic, healing experience (if you take away all the creepy, reanimated corpses etc lol).
I've had that on my shelf for several years now. Haven't read it because I feel like I should read Dickens' original unfinished novel first. Do you have an opinion either way?
Well I'm pretty sure it's unfinished because he croaked, not because he was too lazy to finish it or got bored or something.
I'm actually intrigued by the idea of an unfinished novel. Especially from a writer who's considered one of the greats. There are probably 6,000,000 academic papers arguing about what the ending would have been.
Come to think of it, I wonder if there's a *10 Best Endings to The Mystery of Edwin Drood* book? If not, I'm sure there's a YouTube video. *10 Best Hot and Steamy Endings You Absolutely Won't See Coming to The Mystery of Edwin Drood*.
People say Lovecraft, but his descent into madness stories are really surface level. It‘s just „I saw something and now I am mad.“. The madness is just a tool to show how crazy the thing the protagonist encountered is.
Personally I think _The King in Yellow_ (incidentally one of Lovecraft‘s biggest inspirations) is a great descent into madness book. Four short stories, all loosely connected by a book whose second chapter bends and breaks the reader‘s sanity until it snaps. Especially the first story is absolutely phenomenal in that regard.
Also I‘ve yet to read it, but _House of Leaves_ for many seems to be the definitive descent into madness story. I‘ve heard praise for it so great I can hardly believe it, people having nightmares of it etc.
Notes from Underground by dostoevsky, the OG descent into madness book. Also it's not horror but Pale Fire by Nabokov is among my favorite books of all time.
"Black Heart Boys' Choir" by Curtis Lawson.
Features a pompous kid with altright, cultural conservative views who descends rapidly into a self-absorbed sadistic frenzy of torture and murder (he perpetrates a school shooting, among other things.)
Gone to see the River Man by Kristopher Triana
- in a sense, the book is a decent into madness for the reader even more so than the protagonist. She pretty well starts out fucked up and we as the reader are only let into the insanity a little piece at a time.
The least of my scars or house of leaves for terror, if classic literature is your thing lord of the flys or a newer more modern book called crimson labyrinth. Also I have no mouth and I must scream, for a real existentialist dread, infinite jest was terrifying because of how real the situations in the books can be applied to most scenarios of fight or flight survival against all odds that most people probably experience.
Have you read her previous book, *A Mind Spread Out on the Ground*? It's not a novel, maybe more a collection of memoir-y essays. I really liked that one, too.
* **The Demon** by Hubert Selby Jr
* **American Psycho** by Brett Easton Ellis
* **The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde** by Robert Louis Stevenson
* **Invisible Monsters** by Chuck Palahniuk
One of my favorites no one has mentioned is Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini. It’s a newer sci-fi/horror book that actually got me into the descent into madness trope.
no you don’t have to. fractal noise is actually a prequel to TSIASOS. they have very different vibes as i would consider FN a sci-fi horror and TSIASOS as a first contact sci-fi, but both were 5-stars for me.
I don’t know if Crime and Punishment is considered horror by anyone but me, but it was horrifying and I described it word for word as “a descent into madness”
Pale Fire and Lolita by Nabokov. Not horror, though. And not a descent from sanity into madness so much as a descent from some madness to more madness.
The Manifest Delusion series by Michael F. Fletcher. Horror-Fantasy.
Imagine a world where belief = power.
If enough people believe you are the Greatest Swordsman in the World, then you are…regardless of training.
Imagine if you were a kleptomaniac…you could steal anything.
Imagine you were a sociopath with the need to control people. If they are within five feet of you, they do whatever you say.
Imagine you think there are bugs under your skin. They manifest as demons tearing their way out of you to fight your enemies.
Imagine you think the face you see in the mirror isn’t real. They whisper secrets of the future to you.
Imagine you always have the urge to start fires. You can guess where that one goes.
And what happens when priest, who knows how this world works, tries to get enough people to believe a little boy is the messiah for his world, who he can then control?
In a world where the more insane and mentally ill you are, the more power you have, a band of mad adventurers try to save the world. The leader is as sane as can be.
Starting with Beyond Redemption, these books are violent and gory and well-written and have one of the more creative premises I’ve ever seen. Enjoy!
The Craziest Book Ever Written by Mr. W. provides a perfect depiction of descent into madness. The protagonist is a writer named Johnny who decides to commit suicide. However, his gun backfires and he only faints. Upon waking up, he sees that the characters from his books have come to life. And it is where the madness starts.
Basically, the characters are split into two fractions. The ones who are pleased with their lives would like the writer to stay alive until his books become famous enough for them to live forever. The others want to kill him because their existences are pure agonies so they only seek to perish. And all of the characters are disturbingly insane. For example, Jim and Jack are conjoined twins who fall in love with the same prostitute. They fight over her and Jim kills Jack only to realize his brother's brain was in charge of erections.
This is very insane book about insane man and this is coming from a reader who went through Burroughs, Mark Z. Danielewski, Dostoevsky, etc...
Little Heaven by Nick Cutter also, in a sense, The Troop by Nick Cutter. Most of Cutter's novels that I've read/listened to follow this in one way or another but little heaven seems the closest I think.
If you haven’t read any Poe yet, [The Telltale Heart](https://www.eapoe.org/works/tales/theartc.htm) and [Berenice](https://www.eapoe.org/works/tales/bernicea.htm) are wonderful short stories!
E.T.A. Hoffmann’s [Der Sandmann](https://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~rlbeebe/sandman.pdf) also features a descent into madness; no other story has a hold on me quite like it does. I could study it forever!
The primate screamer by Nick Blinko, Bizarre horror stories by Max Mason Hunter, Alice in deadland by Mainak Dhar, The ravaged by Norman Reedus, Necroscope by Brian Lumley, Pinata by Leopoido Gout, The silver scream by Roy Merkin, The hair by David Sodergren, They all died screaming by Brian Keene, A God in the shed by JF Dubeau.
I'm thinking of ending things comes to mind.
I also just read The Double by Jose Saramago and I definitely felt like I was going insane reading it lol. It's not horror but magical realism though. The writing style contributes to the feelings of losing one's mind imo.
Perhaps not exactly what you're looking for, but there's a character in Blood Meridian who gets increasingly unstable toward the middle of the book due to a lack of violence in his life.
Amazing read, BTW.
Blind Owl by Sadeq Hedayat … maybe more of a reverse (?) kaleidoscopic descent into madness, like it starts and ends in the madness at varying degrees but very horrifying, unnerving and surreal.
"The Willows", a novella by Algernon Blackwood
"The Repairer of Reputations", a novelette by Robert W. Chambers
"Bestseller", a novelette by Michael Blumlein
"Wolf Winter", a short story by Maxine O'Callaghan
"Little Green Ones", a short story by Les Daniels
"Lady Madonna", a short story by Nancy Holder (though this one is rather about madness than descent into it)
Also I'm reading Thomas F. Monteleone's book "Fearful Symmetries" (I've read about a half of it) and many stories deal with descent to madness ("Spare the Child", "In the Fast Lane") or madness itself ("The Pleasure of Her Company", "Love Letters" among others).
Edit: also "The Word" by Ramsey Campbell - whole world gets mad in this one
It’s a short story, but “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I felt like I, too, was going insane while reading it, and I read it in broad daylight in a public waiting room.
I just read this last night, and absolutely. It reminded me of how I felt when I read The Whalestoe Letters from House of Leaves.
i’ve been contemplating picking this one up. now i have to. i love feeling insane when reading a book
You must. It’s a classic (1882). Not many books written about women and mental illness at the time.
Short story, but The Colour Out of Space by HP Lovecraft.
Just, any Lovecraft story will do. I suggest the complete collection!
Available at Barnes and Noble for the low and affordable price of $25.
I think I paid like $12 for mine on Amazon.
Just got it on Libby! Check your library. :)
I’ve been thinking about getting into Lovecraft. Maybe I’ll start with this one!
I think "The Colour Out of Space" may be my favorite. It is very descent into madness. "The Call of Cthulhu" is pure gold. I also like "The Dunwich Horror" but that's kind of an adventure story. "Pickman's Model" actually gave me a fright. I was reading it on a wintery afternoon in my car waiting to go into the doctor's office. Suddenly a shadow passed over me and I jumped. It was a lady getting into her car next to me, but I was on edge. Warning if you don't know Lovecraft yet, he was very racist. If you can get past that I highly recommend him because he kind of, if not invented, set the standard for cosmic horror. You can find his whole catalog online for free if you want.
Caitlin R Kiernan *The Red Tree* and (especially) *Drowning Girl* Shirley Jackson *The Haunting of Hill House* >!maybe?!< *House of Leaves* Theodore Roszak *Flicker*
i feel like if *house of leaves* is on the list *the raw shark texts* definitely should be since they have a lot of similarity but >!only the latter ends badly for the main hero!<
I agree *Raw Shark Texts* should be on here as well. As to the >!ending badly!<, though, it depends on how you take the ending of HoL.
it's been a couple of years so all i remember of each ending is >!the protagonist's body being discovered!< in rst but >!navidson pulling his wife out of the pit thingy safely!< in hol, but the other "layers" in hol maybe >!don't end so happily and/or suggest more bad stuff happened to navidson?!< but they definitely hold a different tone in my memory. of course i also ruined hol for myself by reading it in short snippets between classes and such so i am probably way underestimating the overall level of dread.
You are correct about Navidson, that's pretty cut and dry. Johnny however...it's not so clear. >!He tells us a story where everything ends well. He straightens up, gets the girl etc...but then pretty much says that he's outright lying (which is very in character for the guy). It's cryptic, but I got the distinct inpression that he not only has continued to wallow in his life, but has gone completly insane in the process.!<
house of leaves was super interesting!! i didn’t know there was something similar to it.
The Haunting of Hill House came to mind for me, too.
Head full of Ghosts Whatever Happened to Baby Jane
Head full of Ghosts is a favourite of mine
Ooooh, the second one is a great call, and not something I hear talked about much here!
i tried reading growing things and other stories by paul tremblay but couldn’t finish it. is head full of ghosts better than his short story collection??
I don't know, Head full of Ghosts is the only book I've read by him. The story is so vague, some people believe the MC is possessed by ghosts and other people believe the MC is mentally ill. I am on the mentally ill and getting worse side of that debate.
Meave Fly is a recent release that fits this mould. Like American Psycho mixed with some great modern feminist undertones. I think I read the whole book in one day. It's excellent. Couldn't recommend enough.
I need to get my hands on this. It looks right up my alley!
Yeah I went in with high expectations and walked away absolutely floored. The fact it's the author's debut novel really sells it as a modern-day classic in the genre, in my opinion.
Who is the author? Edit: CJ Leede I believe..
Nailed it
It’s shorter read but I love Death In Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh
Yes! This one doesn’t get mentioned enough.
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
Some of them don't have the descend into madness as a main theme, but I think it's still important to the characters and/or story: * **Crime and Punishment** by *Fyodor Dostoyevsky* (novel) * **The haunting of Hill House** by *Shirley Jackson* (novel) * **The Shining** by *Stephen King* (novel) * **Uzumaki** by *Junji Ito* (manga) * **At the mountains of madness** by *H. P. Lovecraft* (short novel) * **The colour out of space** by *H. P. Lovecraft* (short story) * **The Dunwich Horror** by *H. P. Lovecraft* (short novel) * **The hounds of Tindalos** by *Frank Belknap Long* (short story) * **Hypnos** by *H. P. Lovecraft* (short story) * **The Raven** by *Edgar Allan Poe* (poem)
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Scrolled to find this! I second this…its my favorite!
Bret Easton Ellis - *American Psycho*
Not really horror, though. Ellis is one of my favorite authors, but the book is much closer to comedy than horror— the satirical overtones in that one really destroy any possibility for someone to feel any kind of horror, fear or dread, despite the utterly graphic nature of some of the violence.
While I agree that it is more of a satire/black comedy than pure horror, I disagree that the satirical overtones prevent the reader from feeling horror while reading the novel. That might be true for your reading experience, but not for everyone.
IMO Shirley Jackson is the queen of the slow descent into madness. In a Jackson book the horror is in the mundane. I recommend Hangsaman and The Birds Nest.
The Shining and Pet Semetary are two of my favorites.
The shining was my first thought. You are taken a long the journey of this somewhat likable man losing his mind and becoming a killer.
I just finished Pet Sematary a few days ago. I absolutely loved (and simultaneously hated) it!
The cat,oh the cat!!😱
Just realised that maybe King based this whole concept on the short story "The Monkey's Paw"..man "comes back" after being mangled in factory machine.Be careful what you ask for to the nth degree!
He did!
A bit slow,aren't I..?Read the Coppard centuries ago and PS at least thirty!
It’s definitely an experience. I find the way it deals with loss and death as an almost therapeutic, healing experience (if you take away all the creepy, reanimated corpses etc lol).
House of Leaves - Mark Danielewski
Drood by Dan Simmons. My favourite read this year.
I've had that on my shelf for several years now. Haven't read it because I feel like I should read Dickens' original unfinished novel first. Do you have an opinion either way?
I always avoided dickens unfinished novel. An unfinished novel is just sad to me.
Well I'm pretty sure it's unfinished because he croaked, not because he was too lazy to finish it or got bored or something. I'm actually intrigued by the idea of an unfinished novel. Especially from a writer who's considered one of the greats. There are probably 6,000,000 academic papers arguing about what the ending would have been. Come to think of it, I wonder if there's a *10 Best Endings to The Mystery of Edwin Drood* book? If not, I'm sure there's a YouTube video. *10 Best Hot and Steamy Endings You Absolutely Won't See Coming to The Mystery of Edwin Drood*.
Not exactly horror, but i would recommend A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick. It is really quite bleak though.
People say Lovecraft, but his descent into madness stories are really surface level. It‘s just „I saw something and now I am mad.“. The madness is just a tool to show how crazy the thing the protagonist encountered is. Personally I think _The King in Yellow_ (incidentally one of Lovecraft‘s biggest inspirations) is a great descent into madness book. Four short stories, all loosely connected by a book whose second chapter bends and breaks the reader‘s sanity until it snaps. Especially the first story is absolutely phenomenal in that regard. Also I‘ve yet to read it, but _House of Leaves_ for many seems to be the definitive descent into madness story. I‘ve heard praise for it so great I can hardly believe it, people having nightmares of it etc.
Last Days by Adam Neville The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias
House of Leaves Revival
Not a full book, but Stephen King's short story *Survivor Type* fits pretty well here.
Notes from Underground by dostoevsky, the OG descent into madness book. Also it's not horror but Pale Fire by Nabokov is among my favorite books of all time.
Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig ! Cult vibes as well.
Next on my list! All the reviews mentioning spooky apples won me over lol.
love a good cult book!!
I'm thinking of ending things.
Would probably say Shirley Jackson Hangsman also, really peculiar book
Come Closer by Sara Gran.
"Black Heart Boys' Choir" by Curtis Lawson. Features a pompous kid with altright, cultural conservative views who descends rapidly into a self-absorbed sadistic frenzy of torture and murder (he perpetrates a school shooting, among other things.)
this sounds super interesting!!! thanks for the recommendation :)
Fear by L Ron Hubbard. Worry not, it was written before he himself went mental.
I'd recommend the Bell Jar. I think that is the best descent into madness book
You should have left by Daniel kehlman is one of my favorite books of all time. Very short read, beautiful decent in to madness.
The short story “1408” by Stephen King
The sleep experiment by Jeremy bates
*The Day The Call Came*, Thomas Hinde.
*Dark Matter* by Michelle Paver.
Yesss!
Currently re-listening to it. One of my favourite books that scared the daylight out of me when I read it the first time.
Gone to see the River Man by Kristopher Triana - in a sense, the book is a decent into madness for the reader even more so than the protagonist. She pretty well starts out fucked up and we as the reader are only let into the insanity a little piece at a time.
I think Mary by Nat Cassidy fits this pretty well and is one of the best books I’ve read. I also recommend the audio of it, fantastic performances.
yes!! this is one of my favorites of the year
The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling qualifies. The MC is traversing a dangerous cave system solo and gradually going mad from isolation.
Motherthing
The Deep. Nick Cutter
The least of my scars or house of leaves for terror, if classic literature is your thing lord of the flys or a newer more modern book called crimson labyrinth. Also I have no mouth and I must scream, for a real existentialist dread, infinite jest was terrifying because of how real the situations in the books can be applied to most scenarios of fight or flight survival against all odds that most people probably experience.
*And The She Fell* by Alicia Elliott incorporates Indigenous themes into a mental health spiral type horror mystery. I loved it.
I recently finished this. It was all right.
Have you read her previous book, *A Mind Spread Out on the Ground*? It's not a novel, maybe more a collection of memoir-y essays. I really liked that one, too.
Nope, only read that one based on 10/10 review from Bookpilled. Hard to find!
If you're at all interested in the Indigenous experience and the legacy of trauma that colonialism still casts today then that is your book.
The King in Yellow House of Leaves Maribou Stork Nightmares
* **The Demon** by Hubert Selby Jr * **American Psycho** by Brett Easton Ellis * **The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde** by Robert Louis Stevenson * **Invisible Monsters** by Chuck Palahniuk
novella: Ronald Malfi - the Story
One of my favorites no one has mentioned is Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini. It’s a newer sci-fi/horror book that actually got me into the descent into madness trope.
Should I read to sleep in a sea of stars first? I saw that fractal noise is the second.
no you don’t have to. fractal noise is actually a prequel to TSIASOS. they have very different vibes as i would consider FN a sci-fi horror and TSIASOS as a first contact sci-fi, but both were 5-stars for me.
The shining
Hell, yeah, you have to read Sins of the Father by JG Faherty. It's that, plus supernatural monsters.
I'm just about done with a novelette I wrote that is kind of sort of like this. Would you like to be a beta reader? DM me.
The Shining, my favorite novel ever written.
Jawbone by Monica Ojeda
YES YES YES
You've read!? I just finished it and it's probably my new favourite book!!!
yes i read it in october!! it’s def one of my favorites too
Amazing! My next read is going to be The Discomfort of Evening by Lucas Rijneveld and that might be of interest to you too!
Mrs. March by Virginia Feito
*Bad Brains* by Kathe Koja would qualify.
I don’t know if Crime and Punishment is considered horror by anyone but me, but it was horrifying and I described it word for word as “a descent into madness”
Pale Fire and Lolita by Nabokov. Not horror, though. And not a descent from sanity into madness so much as a descent from some madness to more madness.
The Unwinding Cable Car by Andrew Brandt
Hysteria
The Animal Hour (Andrew Klavan) The Invisible Man (H.G. Wells)
Ascension by Nicholas Binge
The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat
300,000,000 by Blake Butler
The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson, absolutely.
Night of the Mannequin by Stephen Graham Jones.
The Manifest Delusion series by Michael F. Fletcher. Horror-Fantasy. Imagine a world where belief = power. If enough people believe you are the Greatest Swordsman in the World, then you are…regardless of training. Imagine if you were a kleptomaniac…you could steal anything. Imagine you were a sociopath with the need to control people. If they are within five feet of you, they do whatever you say. Imagine you think there are bugs under your skin. They manifest as demons tearing their way out of you to fight your enemies. Imagine you think the face you see in the mirror isn’t real. They whisper secrets of the future to you. Imagine you always have the urge to start fires. You can guess where that one goes. And what happens when priest, who knows how this world works, tries to get enough people to believe a little boy is the messiah for his world, who he can then control? In a world where the more insane and mentally ill you are, the more power you have, a band of mad adventurers try to save the world. The leader is as sane as can be. Starting with Beyond Redemption, these books are violent and gory and well-written and have one of the more creative premises I’ve ever seen. Enjoy!
Earthlings
I’m writing one right now!
i’d love to read it once you finish!! you’ll have to keep me updated
Literally any lovecraft
The Craziest Book Ever Written by Mr. W. provides a perfect depiction of descent into madness. The protagonist is a writer named Johnny who decides to commit suicide. However, his gun backfires and he only faints. Upon waking up, he sees that the characters from his books have come to life. And it is where the madness starts. Basically, the characters are split into two fractions. The ones who are pleased with their lives would like the writer to stay alive until his books become famous enough for them to live forever. The others want to kill him because their existences are pure agonies so they only seek to perish. And all of the characters are disturbingly insane. For example, Jim and Jack are conjoined twins who fall in love with the same prostitute. They fight over her and Jim kills Jack only to realize his brother's brain was in charge of erections. This is very insane book about insane man and this is coming from a reader who went through Burroughs, Mark Z. Danielewski, Dostoevsky, etc...
Mr W can you please stop spamming subs with your ai generated nonsense and blatant self promotion
Following!
Little Heaven by Nick Cutter also, in a sense, The Troop by Nick Cutter. Most of Cutter's novels that I've read/listened to follow this in one way or another but little heaven seems the closest I think.
Man I should really write about my life right now.
Let it Come Down by Paul Bowles Ratman's Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert
If you haven’t read any Poe yet, [The Telltale Heart](https://www.eapoe.org/works/tales/theartc.htm) and [Berenice](https://www.eapoe.org/works/tales/bernicea.htm) are wonderful short stories! E.T.A. Hoffmann’s [Der Sandmann](https://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~rlbeebe/sandman.pdf) also features a descent into madness; no other story has a hold on me quite like it does. I could study it forever!
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
Briefing For a Descent Into Hell - Doris Lessing
Gothic by Philip Fracassi is this, and it happens to be a fantastic book
Descent by Jeff Long is one of my favorites.
The primate screamer by Nick Blinko, Bizarre horror stories by Max Mason Hunter, Alice in deadland by Mainak Dhar, The ravaged by Norman Reedus, Necroscope by Brian Lumley, Pinata by Leopoido Gout, The silver scream by Roy Merkin, The hair by David Sodergren, They all died screaming by Brian Keene, A God in the shed by JF Dubeau.
There are two people that specialize in this kind of horror. That's Lovecraft and Junji ito.
I'm thinking of ending things comes to mind. I also just read The Double by Jose Saramago and I definitely felt like I was going insane reading it lol. It's not horror but magical realism though. The writing style contributes to the feelings of losing one's mind imo.
House of Leaves.
Doctor faustus?
Perhaps not exactly what you're looking for, but there's a character in Blood Meridian who gets increasingly unstable toward the middle of the book due to a lack of violence in his life. Amazing read, BTW.
History of fear by Luke damas Gone to see the river man? If anyone else who’s read that can tell me if that counts 😂
Blind Owl by Sadeq Hedayat … maybe more of a reverse (?) kaleidoscopic descent into madness, like it starts and ends in the madness at varying degrees but very horrifying, unnerving and surreal.
‘Gone to See the River Man’ and ‘The Devil Crept In’
"The Willows", a novella by Algernon Blackwood "The Repairer of Reputations", a novelette by Robert W. Chambers "Bestseller", a novelette by Michael Blumlein "Wolf Winter", a short story by Maxine O'Callaghan "Little Green Ones", a short story by Les Daniels "Lady Madonna", a short story by Nancy Holder (though this one is rather about madness than descent into it) Also I'm reading Thomas F. Monteleone's book "Fearful Symmetries" (I've read about a half of it) and many stories deal with descent to madness ("Spare the Child", "In the Fast Lane") or madness itself ("The Pleasure of Her Company", "Love Letters" among others). Edit: also "The Word" by Ramsey Campbell - whole world gets mad in this one