Garth Marenghi

Garth Marenghi is the fictional horror author creation of English comedian, actor, and writer Matthew Holness. Depicted as a phenomenally conceited hack writer who remains blissfully unaware of his own lack of talent, Marenghi first appeared in the Edinburgh Fringe show Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight (winner of the Perrier Award in 2001) and the cult Channel 4 series Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Holness, born in 1975 and a graduate of Cambridge University's Footlights, has brought Marenghi to print with a trilogy of novels: Garth Marenghi's TerrorTome, Garth Marenghi's Incarcerat, and Garth Marenghi's This Bursted Earth. TerrorTome became a Sunday Times bestseller. The books are a masterful parody of horror fiction, featuring deliberately overwrought prose, absurd plotting, and Marenghi's bombastic author commentary, while simultaneously working as genuine page-turners in their own right. Incarcerat follows horror novelist Nick Steen, abducted and imprisoned in a shadowy technological research facility, continuing the meta-horror structure where reality and fiction blur. Holness has also toured live as Marenghi, performing readings and signings in character. The audiobooks and books offer listeners and readers horror comedy of the highest order — simultaneously a loving send-up of and tribute to the genre.