America’s Most Gothic
Full Title: America’s Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger than Fiction
America’s Most Gothic is a charming blend of storytelling, folklore, and history. After an introduction explaining why the authors, Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes, connect these American ghost and folktales to the Gothic, they share the tales with a wealth of interesting background and related facts, theories, and stories.
For example, in the first story, The Bear Woman, about a Frenchwoman marooned on a Canadian island in 1542, only a few paragraphs were devoted to the story, with the remaining pages devoted to pondering the location of the island and even the identity of Marguerite de la Rocque, positing on the weirdness of Canada (that checks out), and comparing the loneliness, solitude, and despair bordering on madness that Marguerite experienced to postpartum depression - which she may have suffered from in addition to literally being alone on a deserted frozen isle after her lover, ladies’ companion, and baby died.
Each of the stories in America’s Most Gothic received similar treatment, from ghost ships to haunted houses to cursed families, and I am here for it. This is a storytelling that is all too familiar and real - tangent upon tangent but always coming back to the theme - until a snarky aside is needed or another bit of trivia opens another side door, and I promise we’ll only pop into this room for a minute before we get back to the action, but did I tell you…?
Most of the stories were new to me, but even the few I was familiar with gave me more than I had ever heard about them. This book is definitely for anyone who is curious to know more about the story behind the story - but also anyone who just likes a good story - and in particular a story about a woman who survives the scary house, the isolation, the oppression, the patriarchy - which brings me to possibly my favorite thing about America’s Most Gothic.
These stories aren’t told in a vacuum. The authors are living in the same dark timeline we are, and they acknowledge that not only in the introduction but also by ending the each story with a note of hope or advice, so while these stories are from previous times or turmoil which breeds the gothic sensibility, they’re very much of and for our time as well.
They end the book with not only the citations of their amazing research (down the rabbit holes I go!) but also with thoughtful recommendations for more modern gothic fiction and non-fiction (mostly by women!)
Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for the advance copy for my honest review. Pub, date: 9/30/25
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