Adam McOmber admits he's been an ardent fan of the macabre and horror genre since high school. His own writing reflects the exquisitely unhiemlich, "the fantastic moments when the strange breaks through our daily grind." In a recent interview with the New School's LIT writer Mike Gillis, McOmber talks about his passion for the mythology and the fiction like his This New and Poisonous Air and the upcoming Empyrean. "I think that these type of stories- stories of the fantastic- reach back to mythology. Because that's what myths are," he said in a phone interview. "I think humans in general are drawn to these stories because they create this rupture in daily, general experience, and humans in general want that. So I think there's a staying power in that type of fiction." McOmber himself tends to stay away from the genre convention and tropes popular in most horror genre pieces, saying, "You don't want to write something that is purple in a gothic way, because that's really grating. ... When I write I look for a certain kind of density. I avoid those kind of stereotypically gothic things. If I ever write and image that feels like that I'll try to flip it or figure out another way to present it." Asked about the recurring images of simulacra in his work, such as the automatons in the opening story, "The Automatic Garden,"  or the wax figures of Madame Tussad's museum in "There Are No Bodies Such as These," McOmber admits laughingly that "Yes, my work is kind of like these little machines. ... It's like the Automatic Garden itself. It's something I can lose myself in." So can we, Adam, so can we. This New and Poisonous Air is available for purchase here. You can read the whole review over at Newcity Lit, here.