Synopsis:
Meet the women writers who defied convention to craft some of literature’s strangest tales. From Frankenstein to The Haunting of Hill House and beyond, meet the women behind the monsters. It’s like Murder, She Wrote, except in this one it was monsters that she wrote – get it? I know, you get it.
Frankenstein was just the beginning: horror stories and other weird fiction wouldn’t exist without the women who created it. From Gothic ghost stories to psychological horror to science fiction, women have been primary architects of speculative literature of all sorts. And their own life stories are as intriguing as their fiction.
Everyone knows about Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, who was rumored to keep her late husband’s heart in her desk drawer. But have you heard of Margaret “Mad Madge” Cavendish, who wrote a science-fiction epic 150 years earlier (and liked to wear topless gowns to the theater)? If you know the astounding work of Shirley Jackson, whose novel The Haunting of Hill House was reinvented as a Netflix series, then try the psychological hauntings of Violet Paget, who was openly involved in long-term romantic relationships with women in the Victorian era. You’ll meet celebrated icons (Ann Radcliffe, V. C. Andrews), forgotten wordsmiths (Eli Colter, Ruby Jean Jensen), and today’s vanguard (Helen Oyeyemi). Curated reading lists point you to their most spine-chilling tales.
Part biography, part reader’s guide, the engaging write-ups and detailed reading lists will introduce you to more than a hundred authors and over two hundred of their mysterious and spooky novels, novellas, and stories.
Edition:
Hardcover
Awards/Nominations:
- Winner of the Bram Stoker award for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction in 2019
- Locus Award for Nonfiction in 2020
- Booklist Editors’ Choice in Arts and Literature in 2019
My Thoughts:
So now you know it’s not just me singing its praises. This book is great according to basically everyone.
The book is broken up into 8 sections ranging from the Founding Mothers (section 1) to The Future of Horror and Speculative Fiction (section 8). Each section features a brief biography, as well as a reading list. The reading list is divided up into Not to be missed, Also try, and Related work. Not to be missed will provide you with the author’s most notable work(s). While Also try will give you titles that may be lesser know, but are still very good. And Related work will give titles or authors that are similar in some fashion to the relevant author.
I left this book with a much larger TBR than I started with. And one thing that I really appreciated is that there are several authors whose work has fallen into the public domain, so you can pick up e-book copies for free! There’s also a whole section at the back of the book which lists suggested reading. It’s a…monster. Not sorry.
About the Authors:
Lisa Kröger is a writer who lives on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where she enjoys a life of reading, writing, and scaring the wits out of her husband, who doesn’t fully understand her love for all things horror. Sometimes she uses her Ph.D. in Gothic literature to teach, but mostly she uses it to write horror stories–and to raise two of her own little monsters, her sons. Follow her newest work on Facebook and Twitter. Member of the Horror Writer’s Association.
Lisa is represented by Ann Leslie Tuttle at Dystel, Goderich, & Bourret.
She’s also a host on the Know Fear podcast, a biweekly cast that dissects the horror genre. Visit the Know Fear website for more details. www.knowfearcast.com
Melanie R. Anderson is a woman of mystery.
Rating:
I really enjoyed this book. It had a surprising amount of interesting information presented in an easy to read format. Not to mention the cover and all the interior illustrations and decorative elements are whimsical and wonderful. If I could have added one element to the binding, I would have given the pages colored edging (maybe teal to work with the spine and accents?). I love this book she wrote. And by she, I mean they. I can’t stop with this Murder, She Wrote thing. I’m sorry now.
Monster, She Wrote By: Lisa Kröger & Melanie R. Anderson Quirk Books ISBN: 9781683691389 Published: September 17, 2019 Hardcover, E-book 352 Pages Lisa Kröger's website
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