Southern Gothic

Playing Books & Bites Bingo? Try these suggestions for the prompt, a Southern Gothic.

According to Book Riot, southern gothic literature "usually features eccentric, flawed characters, sinister events, elements of the supernatural or fantastical, and themes relating to race, class, decay, violence, and isolation."

Updated July 19, 2024
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Bastard out of Carolina
Allison, Dorothy.
Paper Book
Greenville County, South Carolina, a wild, lush place, is home to the Boatwright family—rough-hewn men who drink hard and shoot up each other's trucks, and indomitable women who marry young and age all too quickly. At the heart of this astonishing novel is Ruth Anne Boatwright, known simply as...
Midnight in the garden of good and evil : a Savannah story
Berendt, John
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A modern classic of true crime, set in a most beguiling Southern city--now in a 30th anniversary edition with a new afterword by the author The basis for the upcoming Broadway musical, coming in 2025! "Elegant and wicked . . . might be...
Ring shout : or, Hunting Ku Kluxes in the end times
Clark, P. Djèlí
Paper Book
Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns with Ring Shout, a dark fantasy historical novella that gives a supernatural twist to the Ku Klux Klan's reign of terror "A fantastical, brutal and thrilling triumph of the imagination...Clark's combination of...
The gospel singer
Crews, Harry
Paper Book
"Harry Crews is magnificently twisted and brutally funny." - Carl Hiaasen A Penguin Classic Golden-haired, with the voice of an angel and a reputation as a healer, the Gospel Singer appeared on the cover of LIFE and brought thousands to their knees in Carnegie...
The boatman's daughter
Davidson, Andy
Paper Book
"Go read Andy Davidson's lush nightmare, The Boatman's Daughter. It put an arrow through my head and heart." --Paul Tremblay, author of Growing Things "Ample bloodshed is offset by beautiful prose . . . A stunning supernatural Southern Gothic." --...
As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William
Paper Book
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time From the Modern Library's new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by William Faulkner--also available are Snopes, The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, and Selected...
Crooked letter, crooked letter
Franklin, Tom.
Paper Book
"The classic trifecta of talent, heart, and a bone-deep sense of storytelling....A masterful performance, deftly rendered and deeply satisfying. For...
The keepers of the house
Grau, Shirley Ann.
Ebook
Starling house
Harrow, Alix E.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK "This book has everything you could possibly want this fall...a cursed town, a haunted house, a vivid & eerie setting--plus, characters willing to risk everything." --Reese Witherspoon (Reese's Book Club October '23 Pick)...
Wake the Bones A Novel
Kilcoyne, Elizabeth.
Paper Book
"YA horror has found a new standard-bearer." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Dark, gripping, and gorgeous, Wake the Bones will lead you into the woods and keep you up late. As lush and sweltering as a Kentucky summer... Elizabeth Kilcoyne is a force." -...
The cutting season : a novel
Locke, Attica.
Paper Book
From Attica Locke, a writer and producer of FOX's Empire: "The Cutting Season is a rare murder mystery with heft, a historical novel that thrills, a page-turner that makes you think. Attica Locke is a dazzling writer with a conscience."--Dolen Perkins-Valdez, New York Times ...
Outer dark
McCarthy, Cormac
Ebook
From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road * A novel at once fabular and starkly evocative, set is an unspecified place in Appalachia, sometime around the turn of the century. A woman bears her brother...
Beloved
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A spellbinding novel that transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. With a new afterword by the author.  This "brutally powerful, mesmerizing story" (...
Wise blood
O'Connor, Flannery.
Paper Book
The American short story master Flannery O'Connor's haunting first novel of faith, false prophets, and redemptive wisdom. Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor's astonishing and haunting first novel, is a classic of twentieth-century literature. It is the story of Hazel Motes,...
The Devil All the Time
Pollock, Donald Ray.
Paper Book
From the acclaimed author of Knockemstiff--called "powerful, remarkable, exceptional" by the Los Angeles Times--comes a dark and riveting vision of America that delivers literary excitement in the highest degree. In The Devil All the Time, Donald Ray Pollock...
The toll
Priest, Cherie
Paper Book
A 2020 LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST HORROR NOVEL From Cherie Priest, the author of The Family Plot and Maplecroft, comes The Toll, a tense, dark, and scary treat for modern fans of the traditionally strange and macabre. ...
Sorrowland
Solomon, Rivers
Paper Book
A TIME 100 Must-Read Book of 2021 A New York Times Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of 2021 The Stonewall Book Award winner of 2022 Named a Best Book of 2021 by NPR, The New York Public Library, Publishers Weekly<...
The little friend
Tartt, Donna.
Audiobook
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch comes an utterly riveting novel set in Mississippi of childhood, innocence, and evil. *  "Destined to become a special kind of classic." --The New York Times Book Review The setting is...
Brutes : a novel
Tate, Dizz
Paper Book
The Virgin Suicides meets The Florida Project in this wildly original debut--a coming-of-age story about the crucible of girlhood, from a writer of rare and startling talent We would not be born out of sweetness, we were born out of rage, we felt it in our bones....
The color purple
Walker, Alice
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that tells the story of two sisters through their correspondence. With a new Preface by the author.
A streetcar named Desire
Williams, Tennessee
Paper Book
It is a very short list of 20th-century American plays that continue to have the same power and impact as when they first appeared--57 years after its Broadway premiere, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire is one of those plays. The story famously recounts how the faded and promiscuous...
Holy city : a novel
Wise, Henry
Paper Book
"Holy City is an amazing piece of work. A Southern novel that examines the pathos and ethos of small-town life and the weight of both grief and hatred. Love it."--S.A. Cosby No one innocent. No one free. Nothing sacred. Holy City is the...
Winter's bone : a novel
Woodrell, Daniel.
Paper Book
When Ree Dollys father skips bail, the 16-year-old knows if he doesn't show up, her family will lose their home. Her goal had been to leave her life of poverty and join the Army, but first she must find her father, teach her little brothers to fend for themselves, and escape a downward spiral of...

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