The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture

by B. Murphy

Overview

The first sustained examination of the depiction of American suburbia in gothic and horror films, television and literature from 1948 to the present day. Beginning with Shirley Jackson's The Road Through the Wall , Murphy discusses representative texts from each decade, including I Am Legend , Bewitched , Halloween and Desperate Housewives .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230218109
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	08/21/2009
Edition description:	2009
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

BERNICE M. MURPHY is Lecturer in Popular Literature at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. She edited the collection Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy (2005) and is co-founder/editor of the online Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction: Welcome to Disturbia The House Down the Street: The Suburban Gothic in Shirley Jackson and Richard Matheson Conjure Wife: The Suburban Witch Aliens, Androids and Zombies: Dehumanisation and the Suburban Gothic 'You Son of a Bitch! You Only Moved the Headstones!': Haunted Suburbia Don't Go Down To The Basement!: Serial Murder, Family Values and the Suburban Horror Film 'Ah, But Underneath…': Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Desperate Housewives Conclusion: The End of Suburbia? Notes Bibliography Filmography Index

Editorial Reviews

'[A] lively and accessible study [...] [This book] will be of use to both researchers and students, thanks to the deft way [Murphy] handles the interaction betweeen intellectual history, suburban studies and popular culture. [...] Murphy's most pertinent insights come from her discussion of the economic and racial dimensions of suburban gothic texts [...] these issues only manifest in genre texts occasionally and Murphy's alertness to them is one of the study's major strengths.' - Cara Rodway, The Journal of American Studies

From the Publisher