The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vi

   PDF

2. Introduction: Welcome to Disturbia

   • Bernice M. Murphy

   Pages 1-14

3. The House Down the Street: The Suburban Gothic in Shirley Jackson and Richard Matheson

   • Bernice M. Murphy

   Pages 15-39

4. Conjure Wife: The Suburban Witch

   • Bernice M. Murphy

   Pages 40-68

5. Aliens, Androids and Zombies: Dehumanisation and the Suburban Gothic

   • Bernice M. Murphy

   Pages 69-103

6. ‘You Son of a Bitch! You Only Moved the Headstones!’ Haunted Suburbia

   • Bernice M. Murphy

   Pages 104-135

7. Don’t Go Down to the Basement! Serial Murder, Family Values and the Suburban Horror Film

   • Bernice M. Murphy

   Pages 136-165

8. ‘Ah, But Underneath...’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Desperate Housewives

   • Bernice M. Murphy

   Pages 166-192

9. Conclusion: The End of Suburbia?

   • Bernice M. Murphy

   Pages 193-200

10. Back Matter

    Pages 201-236

    PDF

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 .

• America
• culture
• film
• television
• media research

'[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

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.

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