Introduction -- 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 -- Conclusion -- 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 -- 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 -- 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 -- Notes -- Bibliography
Summary:
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."--Page 4 of cover.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.