When Edgar Allan Poe set down the tale of the accursed House of Usher in 1839, he also laid the foundation for a literary tradition that has assumed a lasting role in American culture. “The House of Usher” and its literary progeny have not lacked for tenants in the century and a half since: writers from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Stephen King have taken rooms in the haunted houses of American fiction. Dale Bailey traces the haunted house tale from its origins in English gothic fiction to the paperback potboilers of the present, highlighting the unique significance of the house in the domestic, economic, and social ideologies of our nation. The author concludes that the haunted house has become a powerful and profoundly subversive symbol of everything that has gone nightmarishly awry in the American Dream.
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About the Author
Dale Bailey teaches at the University of Tennessee. His short fiction, nominated for the Nebula Award by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, The Best from Fantasy & Science Fiction, and elsewhere.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a highly readable critique of the haunted house tale,
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This review is from: American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction (Hardcover)
Bailey writes as you wish all academicians wrote (most, unfortunately, write tortured prose convulsing in theory, all scribbling madly toward tenure); Bailey is a much-needed exception: his prose is accessible; his criticism insightful; his observations often humorous. Dig this penetrating summation of Poe: "...three-fifths genius and two-fifths sheer fudge, that raving lunatic of American letters, that drunken pedophile dying in his Baltimore ditch." American Nightmares is a keen examination of the haunted house story and how it is inherently an American tale, how it is, in fact, a direct and dire result of our everyday obsessions with the American Dream. Bailey takes obvious delight in examining such pop icons as The Haunting of Hill House, The Amityville Horror, Burnt Offerings, and The Shining (and as he does, you can almost hear the wailings and gnashings of teeth from ivory towers across the country). In short, this book is a highly readable, vastly entertaining pop culture manifesto. It's a must-read for any horror aficionado, highly recommended for anyone interested in American lit, and suggested for all entertained by good prose and refreshing insight.
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