Can I offer you a beautiful woman fleeing a castle in these trying times? From the cover of A Dangerous Observer alone, I knew this book was going to have everything I needed for a purely pleasurable escapist read. A Dangerous Observer is the latest Gothic Romance from one of my favorite authors, Amanda DeWees. (You may remember my reviews of her Gothic spin on Hamlet, Sea of Secrets, and her Daphne du Maurier Award–winning novel, With This Curse.) A Dangerous Observer came out just last month, so now is the perfect time to grab this fresh new read. Continue reading A Dangerous Observer Review–Escape into Gothic Suspense
Plagues and Pandemics in Horror
The spread of COVID-19 is taking over our lives right now. And while I know for some of you, death and disease are the last things you want to read about right now, for many others literature is a place where we can process and confront our anxieties. This has been true throughout history. The Gothic, in particular, has always had a fascination with contagious illness. You can’t build an entire genre around nostalgia for the Middle Ages without grappling with the Black Death—a devastating plague that swept through Europe in the 1300s, killing millions. As Gothic literature developed, many authors—particularly in the Victorian era—had their own lives touched by such infectious diseases as tuberculosis, cholera, scarlet fever, and typhoid. The pandemics of the past and the present force us to confront our mortality and fears around infection and contagion. Some authors explore this through the invention of fictional plagues, while others use myth and monsters as metaphor for transmitting disease. Below are a few major works from Gothic and horror literature’s rich tradition of plagues and pandemics: Continue reading Plagues and Pandemics in Horror
Byron and Polidori’s Vampire Tale
Tall, dark, handsome, … and bloodthirsty. We’re all familiar with the image of the seductively suave vampire. Usually a wealthy aristocrat, he mingles with respectable society while secretly preying upon innocent young maidens in the dead of night. But how did this depiction come to dominate the popular imagination? It all comes back to Byron. Continue reading Byron and Polidori’s Vampire Tale
Queen of the Conquered Review
How do you know if you’re the hero or the villain of your story? Sigourney Rose certainly sees herself as the hero in Kacen Callender’s adult fantasy debut Queen of the Conquered, but by the end of the novel we’re not quite so sure. Remember this book? It was one of the ones I highlighted back in October in my Slytherin Season post about books with snaky covers and resourceful, ambitious protagonists. Well, Queen of the Conquered certainly delivered on that front. Continue reading Queen of the Conquered Review
Classic Stage Company’s Dracula—A Feminist Adaptation
I love a good stage adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire novel, Dracula. After all, Stoker worked in theater for much of his life, and always intended for his charismatic Count to take the stage. Last weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing a particularly unique performance of Dracula adapted by Kate Hamill for the Classic Stage Company in New York City. Hamill makes significant revisions to the source material in order to transform Dracula into a feminist revenge fantasy by centering the female characters and confronting the sexism in Stoker’s original.
Continue reading Classic Stage Company’s Dracula—A Feminist Adaptation
Gothic Tropes: The Mad Scientist
A lab coat, wild hair, thick glasses, and a savage glint in their eye as they watch their ill-considered experiment come to fruition—the mad scientist is a particularly recognizable trope in media and pop culture today. Mad scientists are mainly associated with science fiction and are also popular as stock villains in superhero comics, but what many don’t know is that this character trope has its roots in the Gothic. In fact, the villainization of science makes sense when you consider that the Gothic genre emerged as a reaction against the Enlightenment. While proponents of rationalism encouraged the pursuit of pure reason, many authors of the Gothic feared what such intellectualism might become when divorced from ethics and emotion. The character of the mad scientist is the embodiment of such anxieties, as we can see in several prominent works of Gothic literature.
Let’s Have Another Gothic Revival in Architecture!
I’ve mentioned in passing how the rise of the neo-Gothic architectural movement was deeply intertwined with the advent of Gothic literature. But the Gothic Revival was more than just a fun aesthetic phase—it was a political, philosophical, and artistic statement. Both Gothic literature and the revival of Gothic architecture emerged as a reaction against neoclassicism and the Enlightenment. Continue reading Let’s Have Another Gothic Revival in Architecture!
A Tribute to Mary Higgins Clark, the Queen of Suspense
The suspense genre recently lost one of its greatest literary figures: Mary Higgins Clark died on January 31, 2020, at the age of 92. She had been lauded for many decades as the “Queen of Suspense”—a well-earned titled considering that she published at least one best-selling suspense novel per year ever since her breakout debut in 1975. The suspense novel, or psychological thriller, is one of the many modern genres that evolved out of the Gothic. It is closely tied to another of these genres, detective fiction, and builds on Ann Radcliffe’s concept of terror as the driving force of Gothic fiction. Suspense novels generally involve some sort of crime and/or mystery and focus on the psychological states of the characters as they hurtle toward an uncertain outcome. These novels are characterized by ambiguity, plot twists, and most of all by the sense of worry and anticipation that they arouse in the characters and the reader. Mary Higgins Clark’s novels tend to feature resourceful female protagonists who must solve a mystery they are personally connected to. (One of her most common plot tropes is an accused woman who must prove her own innocence.) Her books are particularly beloved for their relatable leading ladies, who are usually older women that must take on the role of amateur sleuth when their lives are interrupted by violent crime. I reviewed one of Clark’s novels here on this blog a few years back, but today I want to take a broader look at her legacy. Continue reading A Tribute to Mary Higgins Clark, the Queen of Suspense
The Canterville Ghost—Oscar Wilde’s Gothic Parody
You probably know Oscar Wilde from his iconic Gothic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (and its unfortunate role in his trial for homosexuality). He is also widely celebrated for his comedic plays, like The Importance of Being Earnest. But less well-known is a delightful little piece that combines Wilde’s Gothic sensibilities with his biting sense of humor: The Canterville Ghost (1887) is a short story that parodies common elements of the typical ghost story while also satirizing differences in attitude and behavior between Americans and the British. Continue reading The Canterville Ghost—Oscar Wilde’s Gothic Parody
Gothic Tropes: The Naif
Every evil plot needs an innocent victim.… The naïf is one of the core stock characters in Gothic literature. From the same French root as “naive,” the naïf is someone who exemplifies innocence and has not yet been corrupted or made cynical by their encounters with the outside world. This character serves as a foil to innate evil and is usually the main victim of the story’s monster or villain. In Gothic fiction, the naïf is generally a young woman, sometimes an adolescent, who has lived a sheltered life and is suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar and dangerous environment. Because of her lack of experience, the naïf tends to underestimate evil and often trusts the wrong people. The more passive incarnations of this character resemble the stereotypical “damsel in distress,” and need to be rescued by a gallant hero. But sometimes when the naïf loses her innocence, she gains experience and agency. Continue reading Gothic Tropes: The Naif