![]() The history that comes bubbling up to the surface in “Starling House” is Kentucky’s involvement in slavery. “That’s always the threat: that the characters are not going to be able to be free from history,” Poole says “They're not going to be able to be free from the past.” The terror of the past often traps characters in Gothic horror stories, Poole adds. “It's that the atmosphere of the place itself contains all the evils of the past.” It's almost worse than that,” Poole says. “What's frightening in a Gothic novel is not so much that a monster is going to pop out of the closet or from under the bed. ![]() It’s insistent that history does not go away. Poole says that from its very beginnings in the 18th century, Gothic fiction has responded to historical trauma. Scott Poole teaches and writes about horror and popular culture at the College of Charleston. In writing about class, Harrow joins a long tradition of authors writing Gothic fiction as a way to process the ills of society. “I think what I wanted to say about class and poverty is that poverty is a form of violence and horror in and of itself,” Harrow says, “and that those experiences do emotional and physical harm.” Harrow is the author of "Starling House." (Elora Overbey) It’s not a place anyone in their right mind wants to go near.īut Opal, the main character of the book, desperately needs the money to get her brother out of poverty, so she takes a job at Starling House. Harrow’s Eden is notable for its looming and sinister manor owned by the reclusive Starling family. ![]() “One of the reasons that I had found that difficult to do before is because I find it to be a place of very mixed experiences that I love very, very, very much, and which has just an incredible violence and terror to it.” “This is the first book that I set fully in, like committed to writing about Kentucky,” Harrow says. Harrow’s “Starling House,” and the smog of fading power and bad luck is enough to suffocate its residents, most of whom live in abject poverty.įor Harrow, writing a book about Kentucky was a long time coming. The dying coal town is the fictional setting of Alix E. In Eden, Kentucky, the air is thick with dust. Facebook Email The cover of "Starling House" by Alix E.
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