House of Horrors (eBook)

Familial Intimacies in Contemporary American Horror Fiction

Agnieszka Kotwasińska (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023
256 Seiten
University of Wales Press (Verlag)
978-1-83772-014-9 (ISBN)

Infos

This volume demonstrates how contemporary American horror by women writers (and those whose output has been identified as women’s fiction) is not limited to sparkling vampires, but is in fact a pulsating field bursting with genre-defying works spanning the last three decades.

---

This is a study of tumultuous transformations of kinship and intimate relationships in American horror fiction over the last three decades. Twelve contemporary novels (by ten women writers and two whose work has been identified as women’s fiction) are grouped into four main thematic clusters – haunted houses; monsters; vampires; and hauntings – but it is social scripts and concerns linked directly to intimacy and family life that structure the entire volume. By drawing attention to how the most intimate of all social relationships – the family – supports and replicates social hierarchies, exclusions, and struggles for dominance, the book problematises the source of horror. The consideration of horror narratives through the lens of familial intimacies makes it possible to rethink genre boundaries, to question the efficacy of certain genre tropes, and to consider the contribution of such diverse authors as Kathe Koja, Tananarive Due, Gwendolyn Kiste, Elizabeth Engstrom, Sara Gran and Caitlín R. Kiernan.

Inhalt

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Defining Horror
Horror and the Gothic
Women Writers in Horror Fiction and Horror Studies
Defining Intimacy
Overview of Chapters
Chapter 1. Uncanny in the House of Fear
Introduction
Uncanny Houses
Void Dreams in Dead in the Water
Unhomely Funhole in The Cipher
The Queer (Uncanny) Desire in Drawing Blood
Conclusions
Chapter 2. Grotesque Monsters and Hybrid Subjectivities
Introduction
Grotesque Bodies
Hybrid Lesbian Bodies in The Drowning Girl
Male Grotesque in Sineater
Monstrous Girlhood in The Rust Maidens
Conclusion
Chapter 3. Blood(y) Ties in Vampire Fictions
Introduction
Towards Abjection
Gilda’s Sensual Vampires
Escaping the ‘Little Wife’ in Black Ambrosia
Prodigal Children (Not) Coming Home
Conclusion
Chapter 4. Spectral Kinship and Ghostly Selves
Introduction
The Ghostly Other in Horror Fiction
Dangerous Dis/possessions in Come Closer
The ‘Wandering Subject’ in The Between
Familial Disintegration in Within These Walls
Conclusion
Afterword
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 15.6.2023
• Reihe/Serie: Horror Studies
• Reihe/Serie: Horror Studies
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror ► Horror
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Schlagworte: Agnieszka • American • Contemporary • Familial • Fiction • Horror • horrors • House • intimacies • Kotwasińska • of
• ISBN-10: 1-83772-014-2 / 1837720142
• ISBN-13: 978-1-83772-014-9 / 9781837720149