Lure of the Southern Gothic

As a child growing up in Texas, I devoured my grandparents’ tales of Louisiana and Mississippi along with the biscuits and grits. I also swallowed the bitter taste of family conflicts and homegrown dramatic tensions. Escaping into storytelling, like so many future writers, I dreamed of one day holding my published novels and of witnessing my plays on stage, but thought myself handicapped by not being from somewhere exciting such as New York or Paris. Still, I persevered, and some of my writing dreams have since come true—though not by my turning away from my uneasy beginnings. When I turned back, found the courage to peer into the dark corners and let myself be lured into them by the Southern Gothic, then I discovered my voice and my audience.

Gothic literature earned its name, in part, because of the settings it favors—the gothic architecture of labyrinthine castles and crumbling manor houses—enclosing worlds haunted by madness and monstrosity. How easily traditional gothic atmosphere moves, like a restless spirit over marshland, into the Southern Gothic settings of decaying plantation mansions and ravaged landscapes. The antebellum social order echoes the feudal order, and the Lost Cause becomes the protest of power thwarted. Traditional gothic characters such as the patriarchal tyrant and demonic female become the plantation master and the eccentric lady, who cover their respective cruelty and perversion with a sense of entitlement or a genteel veneer.

The sin under the surface, the subtext of evil, is an inextricable part of all gothic tales. In Victorian gothic stories, the conflict between the good and the wicked might be enacted between stock characters—heroes and villains—or dramatized with “doubles” or revealed within a single tormented soul, most famously, by Dr. Jekyll and his other self, Mr. Hyde. While some traditional gothic literature may turn to strange science or the supernatural to raise anxiety in its audience, the Southern Gothic creates a mounting sense of unease by exploring the grotesque in the natural world and exposing the horror beneath the ordinary, revealing the sin and perhaps the saving grace. In my historical novel, Women of Magdalene, the plantation mansion is transformed into the Magdalene Ladies’ Lunatic Asylum, which, as an idealist young doctor discovers, is run by a madman. In my writing, I find the monster in the closet is rascism and the monster under the bed is misogyny. Doubles, indeed, lurking in shadow and hiding behind custom. Even so, I lift my guttering candle and follow the Southern gothic down another dark corridor.

Paraplex: A Treat for the Six Senses

Research for a novel brought me this spring to New Orleans, and research for particularly gothic aspects of that novel brought me to the city’s new “attraction for all six senses”: the Paraplex. The name, short for “paranormal complex”, designates a 19th century mansion, once a private residence, later a mortuary, and now an uncanny museum and ghostly observatory. Behind its white-columned façade, the Paraplex houses displays of haunted art and personal possessions, as well as educational exhibits on psychic secrets, Ouija boards, and the Tarot. Visitors are invited to roam the mansion to explore facets of parapsychology, experience the séance chamber, and participate in the Fear Experiment in the haunted basement.

The port city of New Orleans, whose beginnings date back to 1718, possesses an eventful past of battles among men and against deadly diseases such as yellow fever and cholera; of trafficking in human beings through the slave trade and prostitution; of disasters, natural and man-made, brought on by floods, hurricanes, and broken levees. With its convoluted history of suffering, of wild Mardi Gras revelry, and of restless spirits, New Orleans provides the perfect setting for the mysteries of the Paraplex. And the city calls to me as the setting for my next Southern gothic novel.

While the plot of my work-in-progress does not exactly hinge on the supernatural, the characters do possess varying degrees of familiarity with the unseen and the inexplicable.
Hoping to better understand what haunts my particular New Orleanian characters, I entered the Paraplex séance chamber, took my seat at the round table, and clasped hands with other visitors, whom I assumed were as corporeal as I. Writers rely on their five senses to create vivid prose, but sometimes they need a little help from the sixth. I came away from the Paraplex more knowledgeable about the paranormal, more inspired by the spirit world. And, in the Louisiana tradition of the lagniappe, I received something extra: in the haunted basement, I enjoyed a great, blood-curdling scream.

For more information about the Paraplex, please visit:

http://www.paraplex.net/

A Room of Her Own and Ideas to Fill It

A Room of Her Own Foundation offers many opportunities to creative women who long for the time and space to pursue their arts, most notably “The Gift of Freedom”, a $50,000 grant awarded to one woman to support her in the completion of a writing project. Along with approximately 750 other women writers, I applied for the grant and, along with all but one of them, was not the recipient. Tracey Cravens-Gras, Associate Director of AROHO Foundation, softened my disappointment with her statement that made me feel part of something much larger than my individual ambition; she said that the myriad grant application submissions were “striking testaments to courage and brilliance, and part of a ground-swelling rise among women to reach their creative potential in the world.” The personal process of applying for the “The Gift of Freedom” is a revelation for each woman—and the collective result of that process creates a force-field of literary energy. To the winner, Barbara Johnson of New Orleans, I offer my heartfelt congratulations. In addition to being a dedicated writer, Ms. Johnson is an experienced carpenter, who volunteers with Rebuilding Together. How beautifully fitting it is that Barbara Johnson, who builds spaces for others, has now been awarded a room of her own.

For more information about AROHO, please visit: www.aroomofherownfoundation.org