by Barbara Bennett, Guest Feature Editor
Nearly everyone loves gothic literature. Chains rattling, ghostly appearances, decayed old mansions, monsters peaking around corners. Our literature is full of it: think of Frankenstein, Dracula, and of course, our American king of gothic, Edgar Allan Poe.
In the twentieth century, the American South began producing its own brand of gothic literature, but with a qualifier. Authors such as Willian Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Cormac McCarthy wrote about a decaying and sometimes freakish South that fits the definition of gothic, but this literature examined and critiqued the values of the region at the same time, exploring social issues and revealing the problems in the cultural landscape. These stories often recount the myths of the Old South and the repercussions of the past on the present. Southern gothic looks at poverty, racism, and violence, and examines the causes behind the disturbing, eccentric characters, decayed settings, the madness, the despair.
When I think of Faulkner’s gothic, I think of the novel Sanctuary and short stories like “Dry September.” O’Connor’s short stories are full of the decaying, racist South, and McCarthy’s Child of God always horrifies my students. In later years, Randall Kenan’s brilliant novel A Visitation of Spirits, Wiley Cash’s A Land More Kind Than Home, and Paul Green’s play The House of Connelly carry on the legacy. But there are so many new gothic writers and works in North Carolina. That’s what I want to bring to the surface in the 2027 Feature for NCLR—all those hidden gems that only some people know about.
I’d like to include another, even newer sub-genre of Southern gothic that has emerged in recent decades. Black Southern gothic is a growing trend in film and fiction. With films like Get Out and Sinners, and books like Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book and People Like Us, artists are reworking the Southern gothic to include a critical look at Black life in relation to white supremacy from the Black citizen’s point of view. The same tropes that are found in gothic literature are there: darkness, madness, ghosts, fear and terror, but at the same time, these artists illustrate the near-constant vulnerability of Black people in this country and especially in this region.
There’s a music video that you can Google that illustrates Black Southern gothic, but I want to warn readers that it is intense—but if you’ve seen Sinners, you can probably take it. It’s called “This is America” by Childish Gambino. It’s hard to watch. Choose or don’t choose.
What I want from this issue of NCLR is to visit the many new names that are emerging in Southern gothic. Let’s explore and celebrate the gothic in North Carolina. In addition to reviews of new authors’ books, interviews with gothic writers, and scholarship about the gothic, I’d love to include a few works of the emerging gothic writers—a short story, a poem. Please submit to NCLR for this special issue!
