An orphaned governess takes up a new position in a remote manor and begins to develop inadvisable feelings for her employer. You’ve heard this story before—or have you? L. V. Russell puts a new twist on this classic Gothic premise in The Quiet Stillness of Empty Houses, which came out earlier this month from small indie press Quill & Crow Publishing House. Continue reading The Quiet Stillness of Empty Houses Review
Folk Horror in Literature
Something ancient has been awakened in the woods…. This premise encapsulates the essence of many folk horror stories. I have briefly touched on folk horror before in my review of the YA folk horror anthology The Gathering Dark, but as this deeply rooted subgenre of horror experiences another wave of popularity, I figured it was time to dive into it more deeply and give you a few recommendations through which to explore the genre.
In my earlier post, I defined folk horror as “any horror tale that draws on regional folklore,” but this is a bit of a simplification. As with the Gothic, folk horror is difficult to nail down and define. Works in this category tend to deal not just with folklore but also with folk religion, customs, and rituals. In Western literature, this often involves elements of some pre-Christian pagan practice that has persisted in isolated communities despite the pressure to Christianize. Works of folk horror may draw on real life folklore, beliefs, and practices from a particular culture or region, or they may feature a fictional community with lore of the author’s own creation. Common themes and tropes in works of folk horror include a rural setting, a supernatural entity associated with the natural environment, and worship of or sacrifice to this entity. Continue reading Folk Horror in Literature
Re: Dracula Podcast Review
Happy birthday to me! I just turned thirty last week and I can’t think of a better present than the fact that my birthday month is the start of Dracula season. Bram Stoker’s classic vampire novel begins with an entry from Jonathan Harker’s journal dated May 3. Last year, I wrote about following along with the email newsletter Dracula Daily, which kicked off a fervor for experiencing the story of Dracula in real time through the letters and diary entries that comprise this epistolary tale being sent to you one by one on the corresponding date. If you missed it last time, the Dracula Daily newsletter has just started up again for its third yearly cycle. But this year, there’s yet another way to follow along with the daily adventures of Jonathan Harker and his friends, and this one’s in my favorite format: audio. Re: Dracula is a brand new podcast that turns the letters and diary entries of Stoker’s novel into short audio episodes. As with Dracula Daily, each episode is released on the date that corresponds with the events of the novel.
Bluebeard—A Proto-Gothic Folktale
The Gothic literary movement may not have begun until the mid-eighteenth century with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, but it draws on much older wells of literary tradition. I have already explored the proto-Gothic elements of several of Shakespeare’s plays, which inspired many of the themes and tropes of later Gothic works. Another strong source of inspiration for the Gothic was folklore and fairytales. In many cultures, such tales can be considered one of the earliest forms of horror literature, as they often depict monsters, dark magic, and gruesome consequences for poorly considered actions. But few are quite so dark as the famous French folktale “Bluebeard.”
As is generally the case with tales that were passed down orally, there is no way to know quite how old the Bluebeard story is, but it was first written down and published by French folklorist Charles Perrault in 1697. Its oral nature also means that there are many different versions and variations on the story, but the general outline goes like this: Once upon a time, a very wealthy widower was looking for a new wife, but the local women considered him ugly or frightening because of his strange blue beard. He approached a family with two daughters, and one eventually agreed to marry him after seeing his vast wealth. Shortly after the wedding, Bluebeard tells his new bride that he has to go away from the house for a while. He leaves her a ring of keys and invites her to use them to explore the whole house—with the exception of a locked closet at the end of a long gallery that the smallest key opens. Despite his dire warnings, the young wife eventually gives into temptation and opens the locked closet. Inside, she sees the bloodied bodies of multiple previous wives who, like her, disobeyed Bluebeard’s orders. When Bluebeard returns earlier than expected, the bloodstained key reveals the wife’s disobedience. Just as she is preparing to meet the same fate as her predecessors, the young woman is rescued by her brothers. You can read an 1828 version of the story here on WikiSource. Continue reading Bluebeard—A Proto-Gothic Folktale
Review of FINNA and DEFEKT—Retail Terror
Anyone who has ever worked retail can probably regale you with tales of crazy customers, unreasonable managers, and hellish working conditions. Indeed, writer Nino Cipri’s traumatic experiences working retail inspired them to create the bizarre sci-fi horror world of their LitenVerse books. The two novellas in the series, Finna (2020) and Defekt (2021), are set in an IKEA-like big-box furniture store that has a tendency to open up portals into other dimensions…
Finna centers on two LitenVärld employees, Ava and Jules, who recently broke off a romantic relationship. After the breakup, Ava changed her work schedule so that she wouldn’t have to run into Jules on the shop floor. But when “Fucking Derek” doesn’t show up for his shift, Ava is called in to work awkwardly side by side with her ex. Then things start to get really weird when a customer’s grandmother goes missing. The LitenVärld staff is informed via cringey instructional video that the maze-like structure of the store’s showrooms occasionally causes wormholes to spontaneously open up into parallel dimensions—and it’s up to the employees to retrieve any customers who unwittingly wander through the portals. When Jules recklessly volunteers for the mission, Ava can’t just sit there and let them go alone. As the two traverse increasingly strange and dangerous worlds with alternate LitenVärld stores populated by carnivorous furniture and hive-mind clones, Ava and Jules begin to rebuild a tenuous friendship in the ruins of their romance.
A companion novel that stands easily on its own, Defekt slots into the empty spaces of Finna. It tells the story of Derek, whose absence spurred the events of the previous book. Derek is the perfect employee. He studies his LitenVärld Employee Handbook religiously, practices his customer service greetings in the mirror each morning, lives in a shipping container behind the store, and cannot understand why his coworkers don’t share his eager enthusiasm for selling Swedish furniture. It’s almost like he was made for this job…. But after a strange itch in his throat leads Derek to take his very first sick day, management reassigns him to a special inventory shift, locking him in the store overnight. Derek finds himself directed to hunt down defective products—mutant toilets and skittering toy chests that seem to have developed sentience—beside a team of four strangers that seem eerily familiar. But as he sees the brutality with which LitenVärld treats its defective products, he begins to question how his beloved employer might treat defective employees… Continue reading Review of FINNA and DEFEKT—Retail Terror
Review of Piñata—Possession in Mexico
It’s good to get in touch with your roots, but sometimes those roots don’t want to stay buried… Apocalyptic Aztec gods and the vengeful spirit of a murdered Nahua woman threaten to enact a bloody vengeance for the horrors of colonialism in Piñata by Leopoldo Gout, a Mexican horror novel that came out last month. Continue reading Review of Piñata—Possession in Mexico
Review of The Writing Retreat—Channeling Stories and Spirits
How far would you go for a book deal? Five aspiring authors are faced with this question in Julia Bartz’s deliciously suspenseful debut The Writing Retreat, which came out earlier this year.
Alex has been suffering from writer’s block for over a year, ever since she had a catastrophic falling out with her former roommate and best friend Wren. But then she gets the opportunity of a lifetime to help her break out of her slump: a spot in an exclusive month-long writing retreat at the estate of her literary idol: the mysterious and reclusive genius of feminist literary horror, Roza Vallo. The only problem? Wren has been invited, too. Upon arrival at Blackbriar, Roza’s isolated mansion in snowy Upstate New York, Alex learns that she will be competing against Wren and three other young women to write a novel from scratch, with grueling daily word-count requirements and critique sessions. The winner will receive a seven-figure book deal and get to tour with Roza. Choosing the house’s dark history as the subject of her book, Alex will have to confront her own demons and those that haunt the estate if she’s going to have any chance at winning the contest. But as the retreat progresses, it becomes clear that not all of these young women may be quite who they appear and that even Roza Vallo may be harboring dark—perhaps deadly—secrets. Continue reading Review of The Writing Retreat—Channeling Stories and Spirits
Flowers in Gothic Literature
Spring is finally here in the northeastern U.S.! Magnificent magnolia trees and sunny daffodils have been bringing a smile to my face as I go on my lunchtime walks. But beautiful things can have a dark side, and if the film Midsommar has taught us anything, it’s that you can still experience intense terror while surrounded by colorful flowers. Flowers pop up in all sorts of unexpected places in Gothic literature. Here are just a few examples below:
Review of Tell Me I’m Worthless
Today I want to take a deeper dive into one of the books I read for the Trans Rights Readathon the other week: Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt. This debut haunted house story came out in the U.S. earlier this year and showcases how examples of real-world horrors can be transformed and explored with nuance in fiction. Continue reading Review of Tell Me I’m Worthless
#TransRightsReadathon Recap
Today is the last day of the #TransRightsReadathon! If you’re on BookTok, Bookstagram, or BookTwitter, then you’ve probably seen people posting all week using this hashtag. The Trans Rights Readathon is a decentralized fundraising effort started by author Sim Kern in response to recent anti-trans legislation being passed or proposed around the country. Using this hashtag, bookish content creators on all social media platforms have pledged to read as many books by trans authors or featuring trans representation as they can between March 20 and March 27, while raising money for organizations that support trans people and trans rights.
