Any horror writer doing their job knows how to tap into the fears that plague us most. Jeremy Dauber’s American Scary: A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond provides a robust account of how art has reflected American dread for centuries. As it turns out, our history is rife with foundational fear, making it prime territory for some scary storytelling.
Dauber starts his “tour of American fear” with our country’s bloody beginnings and proclivity for blaming the devil for everything from bad weather to miscarriage (hello, Salem!). He then passes through slavery, the Industrial Revolution, the Civil War and beyond to more contemporary paranoias reflected in film: murderous technology (The Terminator), individual indifference (the Final Destination series) and surveillance (Paranormal Activity), to name a few.
One of his strongest examples illuminates the anxieties of women living in the late 19th century with Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.” In the story, when a woman is told that her husband has died in an accident, her reaction is one of great, unexpected joy and an overwhelming sense of liberation. Just when you think that’s the end of the tale, she discovers the news was given in error: Her husband is still very much alive. The tale ends with her death, which somehow feels less tragic than her loss of freedom. “Chopin’s most pressing contributions to the American fearfulness,” writes Dauber, “. . . consist of the suggestion that liberation, at least for women, is impossible; that, in the end, that sort of awakening . . . is but an illusion.”
Clocking in at over 400 pages with an at-times academic approach, American Scary may come off a bit intimidating at first. But for lovers of all things macabre, the book is worth its weight. Dauber’s attention to the details of myriad cultural touchstones, both famous and obscure, will entice those who care to tiptoe deeper into the darkest of the dark. Dauber acknowledges as well that things in the real world are often scarier than the stories we tell; it’s not a new take, but it’s one he makes exceptionally well.
American Scary’s greatest success is making readers consider what art may be born of our late-night anxieties. Spooky stuff, huh?
