House of Horrors

Familial Intimacies in Contemporary American Horror Fiction

By (author) Agnieszka Kotwasińska

Publication date:

15 June 2023

Length of book:

256 pages

Publisher

University of Wales Press

Dimensions:

216x138mm

ISBN-13: 9781837720125

BOOK DESCRIPTION
TABLE OF CONTENTS

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.

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