As though an aftershock of that horrifying tsunami that hit Asia yesterday, another great thinker has died today: Susan Sontag. Her work on photography, illness, and camp deserve to be remembered. Particularly "Illness as Metaphor" -- a book that really helped me to think allegorically about what I do from time to time as a horror writer, as well as a critic of pop culture. Although I didn't enjoy her fiction as much as her aesthetic criticism, I respected the way she was able to bridge the divide between fiction writing and theory, as well.

Her cause of death has yet to be determined, but sources suggest that it was cancer or leukemia. "Cancer is a demonic pregnancy" she wrote in "Illness as Metaphor," analyzing the way that it has been represented throughout history as though having a monstrous life all its own. I've never forgotten that.

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