Gothic horror novel

Contemporary Gothic

Contemporary American writers in the tradition include Joyce Carol Oates with such novels as Bellefleur and A Bloodsmoor Romance, Toni Morrison with her radical novel Beloved, about a slave-woman whose murdered baby haunts her, Raymond Kennedy with his novel Lulu Incognito, Donna Tartt with her postmodern gothic horror novel The Secret History, Ursula Vernon with her Edgar Allan Poe-inspired novel What Moves the Dead, Danielle Trussoni with her "gothic extravaganza" The Ancestor, and filmmaker Anna Biller with Bluebeard's Castle, a throwback to 18th-century Gothic novels and 1960s dime-store romances. British writers who have continued in the Gothic tradition include Sarah Waters with her haunted house novel The Little Stranger, Diane Setterfield with her quintessentially Gothic novels The Thirteenth Tale and Once Upon a River, Helen Oyeyemi with her experimental novel White is for Witching, Sarah Perry with her novels Melmoth and The Essex Serpent, and Laura Purcell with her historical novels The Silent Companions and The Shape of Darkness.