Politics & Power Quote by Brian Lumley

Lumley’s line is a sly defense of genre fiction disguised as a casual cultural comparison. By putting German readers in the same sentence as Brits and Americans, he punctures the old, sniffy idea that some national audiences are too serious, too philosophical, too "literary" to enjoy a good scare. The effect is democratizing: horror isn’t a provincial guilty pleasure, it’s a shared modern appetite.

The mechanics of the quote are doing a lot of work. “They read for the thrill of it” sounds almost dismissive until the next clause arrives: “the occasional shudder down the spine.” Lumley is mapping fear as a bodily experience, not an intellectual puzzle. Then comes the key pivot: “knowing it’s not real - but looking over their shoulders anyway.” That dash is the engine of the whole thought. It’s the gap between rational knowledge and animal reflex, between the reader who can summarize genre conventions and the reader who still flinches when the house creaks at night.

Subtextually, Lumley is also describing the social contract between writer and reader. Horror works because the audience consents to be tricked. You don’t just suspend disbelief; you keep it in your pocket, like a flashlight you pretend not to need. Context matters here: Lumley, a career horror writer with a pulp-to-cult following, is arguing for the legitimacy of the pleasure he sells. The “just in case” isn’t literal; it’s the lingering residue of fiction that proves the story did its job.