House of Horrors: Familial Intimacies in Contemporary American Horror Fiction

Mar 4, 2024

House of Horrors: Familial Intimacies in Contemporary American Horror Fiction

Summary: 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.

Type: Book

Author: Agnieszka Kotwasińska

Language: English

Link: access the publication by clicking here

Institution: American Studies Center, University of Warsaw

Date: 2023