From the beginnings of the post-war era, suburbia has frequently served as a setting for narratives of fear, repression and horror. Why has this been the case? And what actually is the Suburban Gothic? Beginning with a discussion of Shirley Jackson's novel The Road Through the Wall (1948) and ending with Desperate Housewives (2004 – ), this book discusses representative texts from each decade up to the present day. Each chapter provides a contextualising examination of the era and cultural and historical contexts of its setting, thus providing a unique insight into the changing face of the suburbs and, by extension, of American society. Murphy shows that depictions of suburbia in horror and the gothic provide an intriguing glimpse into the manner in which modern American society views itself.
 
Making a major contribution to American cultural studies and to gothic criticism in general, this is the first sustained examination of the depiction of American suburbia in gothic and horror films, television and literature from 1948 up to today.

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

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.