Focuses on the California Gothic in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

California Gothic explores the California dream and its dark inversion as a nightmare, as illustrated in fiction, poetry, and film. California began as a literary invention, a magic island, in a Spanish romance before conquistadors first visited the land. From early days to the present, the California dream of happiness in a land of new beginnings has been maintained by suppression of disturbing realities: above all, the destruction of native peoples; and by events and facts such as the tragedy of the Donner Party, the persistence of poverty and crime in the golden land, disturbing crimes such as the Black Dahlia; and pandemics and ecological disaster. This book explores a rich Gothic tradition that exposes the repressed past and imagines the fates awaiting a failed California.

Dan and his wife Evie had buried the past a past in which Dan was a poet and a member of a radical cult which the FBI eventually hunted down and destroyed. Now in a world without a past, in a land of celluloid dreams, what was once killed has come alive again...

The first sustained examination of the depiction of American suburbia in gothic and horror films, television and literature from 1948 to the present day. Beginning with Shirley Jackson's The Road Through the Wall , Murphy discusses representative texts from each decade, including I Am Legend , Bewitched , Halloween and Desperate Housewives .

The Rural Gothic in American Popular Culture argues that complex and often negative initial responses of early European settlers continue to influence American horror and gothic narratives to this day. The book undertakes a detailed analysis of key literary and filmic texts situated within consideration of specific contexts.

In recent years horror and gothic themes have penetrated mainstream popular culture in a manner unseen since the horror boom of the 1970s. Primetime television viewers who before might not have shown interest in such late-night fare now happily settle down after dinner to watch zombie or serial killer shows. This collection of 54 biographical essays examines many overlooked and underrated figures who have played a role in the ever expanding world of horror and gothic entertainment. The contributors push the boundaries of how we define these terms, bringing into the discussion such diverse figures as singer-songwriter Tom Waits, occultist Dion Fortune, author Charles Beaumont, historian and bishop Gregory of Tours and video game designer Shinji Mikami.

Sheila Bernstein, a single mother evading an abusive ex-spouse, wants to recreate early memories of her family, before the death of her parents, so her son can know a normal life. She got married young to her college professor, who turned out to be controlling and abusive. She has divorced him and at the opening of the story is supporting herself and her four-year-old son as a wine buyer. Sheila is touring a Napa Valley winery for work, with her son in tow, her babysitting having fallen through at the last minute. She experiences a mutual and immediate attraction with the winery's owner and tour guide, Alan Marchand. Alan is disabled, having lost an arm ten years before. Then Sheila's ex-husband, Richard, shows up. Alan and his family fend him off. Sheila quickly gets drawn into life at the winery, eventually moving in and working there, falling in love with Alan, his family, and home, seeing there a stability and closeness she has never had. But not all is as it seems. Underneath the carefree spirits of the winery, something sinister lurks. There are rumors the winery is cursed. None of the family will talk about the crime in which Alan was injured and his girlfriend kidnapped and presumed killed. Alan, a talented artist before, no longer paints. Alan's sister and cousin, too, also seem caught in the web of the winery's spell, unable to move forward with their lives. Sheila experiences a number of strange events while alone at the winery and becomes convinced that it is indeed haunted. To go forward with their lives, Alan's and Sheila's painful pasts must be uncovered. In order to do this, Sheila is forced to look at Alan and his family critically and stand on her own feet. When she does, she decides to leave. She returns to her hometown of Sacramento and proves to herself that she is able to manage on her own and support her child. She, however, does return to Napa upon learning that she is pregnant with Alan's child. Back in Napa, Alan has resolved him primary conflict in recognizing that he is still attractive to women and that Sheila was not just using him. He and Sheila reconcile on her return. In the meantime, Alan's extended family, his cousins have sensed that something amiss, the spell breaking and the winery slipping from their control. They set fire to it on the day that Sheila returns. Alan and his immediate family manage to escape unharmed; however, the winery burns to the ground, taking with it generations of unhappiness-the place that had earlier seemed like a joyful haven to Sheila. Sheila and Alan make their new home in Sacramento, where Sheila realizes that she will always be, to an extent, under the Marchand "spell," but now it is something positive, bringing her the security she has craved.

poetry

The first volume to provide an interdisciplinary, comprehensive history of twentieth and twenty-first century Gothic culture.

Parasites and perverts: an introduction to gothic monstrosity -- Making monsters: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein -- Gothic surface, gothic depth: the subject of secrecy in Stevenson and Wilde -- Technologies of monstrosity: Bram Stoker's Dracula -- Reading counterclockwise: paranoid gothic or gothic paranoia? -- Bodies that splatter: queers and chain saws -- Skinflick: posthuman genderin Jonathan Demme's The silence of the lambs -- Conclusion: serial killing.