California Gothic in Fiction and Film

Bernice M. Murphy is an Associate Professor and Lecturer in Popular Literature in the School of English, Trinity College, Dublin. She has published extensively on topics related to American Gothic and horror fiction and film and was recently academic consultant to The Letters of Shirley Jackson (2021, edited by Laurence Jackson Hyman). Bernice was made a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin in 2017.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: ‘Evil Lurks in California’ Part 1: Foundational Horrors1. ‘What Happened a Hundred Years Ago is Happening Again!’ The Ghosts of the California Past2. The Dark Side of the ‘Good Life’: California and the Birth of Modern HorrorPart 2: Hollywood Gothic3. ‘Sunshine is Never Enough’: Hollywood Gothic Origins4. Fallen Stars in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962)5. ‘It’s a Gateway Part!’ Twenty-First Century Hollywood GothicPart 3: Cult California: New Gods and New Selves6. Cult Nightmares in Our Lady of Darkness (1977) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)7. ‘The Usual Utopian Vision: Contemporary Cult California in The Invitation (2015), 1BR (2019) and The Circle (2013)Conclusion:8. ‘It’s Our Time Now’: Us (2019) and Desierto (2015)Index

California Gothic is a brilliant, insightful and richly historical book, one that will jolt you into awareness of the glaring omission (until now) of California from the American Gothic. It offers figures that take their rightful place in the Gothic canon – the ‘Fallen Star’ of the ’Hollywood Gothic’ and the ‘California Cult’ – and delivers the most innovative intervention into Gothic criticism in years.