Hi! Norovirus ravaged our household this weekend, and now I’m behind on everything, so I’m keeping this post short.
Recently, I came across Briar Press New York, a “boutique publishing house devoted to the Gothic.” They looked fantastic, so I eagerly downloaded their anthology These Dark Things: Twelve New Gothic Tales.
I loved it. As its subtitle suggests, this upmarket collection broadens the definition of what a gothic story can be. Yes, there are deliciously chilling stories set in the more traditional places—an old graveyard in Dublin, a crumbling manor house in the English countryside—but there are also tales that take place in New Orleans, in Appalachia, and even in Texas’s Big Bend National Park.
The range of topics is modern, interesting, and satisfying too—ghosts figure for sure, but so do murderous wives and mothers, unsettling scarecrows, animate statues, and cursed people with disfigurements and strange bodily developments. Everything from body horror to domestic, racial, and transgender violence is explored, and all in language that is carefully crafted and quite literary. These authors are skilled, and the ones who aren’t as established are certainly promising.
Three stories resonated especially with me: “Appalachian Gothic” by Felicia Burgett, “Smoke and Mirrors” by Emily Amber Faust, and “Her Loving Touch” by C.R. Camarillo.
“Appalachian Gothic”
After his father’s passing, a young man decides to remain in the small Appalachian town where his dad spent his final years. The protagonist manages the Dollar General and is fine with most everything except the strange smelling water (tainted from the paper factory) and the scarecrows. They’re only out once a year–the town’s fall decor–but there’s something disturbing about these scarecrows. They’re certainly no tourist attraction. When the protagonist inquires obsessively about them, the locals either brush him off or tell him to shut his mouth and mind his own business. After a fit of rage leads him to destroy one of the scarecrows, the protagonist learns a violent and terrifying lesson about the importance of accepting local traditions.
I loved Burgett’s specificity, uniqueness of detail, and haunting ambiguity, all of which made her story feel original and fresh even as it uses the “scary locals” trope.
“Smoke and Mirrors”
A divorced mother struggles first with her ex-husband’s threats to take full custody of their daughters, then with his own unspeakable treatment of their children. When she turns to the family courts for help, even that is difficult; justice proves nearly elusive. Ultimately, these awful circumstances force the protagonist to realize she must deal with all the darkness in her life alone, even as she tries to teach her daughters how to be resilient.
The moments of gothic imagery and lyricism in Faust’s story create an effective and powerful antithesis to the realistic, heartbreaking details of abuse and a broken justice system. The gaslighting and disorientation the main character suffers from also reminded me a bit of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, itself a classic of short gothic prose.
“Her Loving Touch”
Vico is a promising business student who works as a summer packer at his uncle’s packing station in Big Bend National Park. One day, a suave, wealthy, older man appears and bribes Vico into taking a load of his gear up to a remote campsite on Vico’s day off. Despite his misgivings, Vico relents, and on the difficult journey up, he discovers something gruesome in the rich man’s bags. This leads the wealthy man, Augusto Aguilar, to tell Vico a sentimental story about a wish of his dear wife’s. Little does Vico know, this is the beginning of a longer, stranger, and more morally perilous journey than he can imagine.
Camarillo’s smooth, minimal, yet evocative style creates an intriguing take on the old “deal with the devil” archetype, and I was impressed at the way the author continually develops his characters, subverting my expectations all the way to the end, which is tough to do in short fiction.
In short, I recommend this entire collection to anyone who enjoys quiet or psychological horror written in beautiful, atmospheric language. I was sorry when I reached the end, and I’m excited to read more titles from Briar Press New York. Next on my list is their Ghostly Kiss: Millsborough Sisters No. 1. .
Do you enjoy gothic stories or movies? Do you have any recommendations?
XOXO,
Jenn
Jennifer Shaw 