American nightmares cover

American nightmares

by Dale Bailey

"When Edgar Allan Poe set down the tale of the accursed House of Usher in 1839, he also laid the foundation for a literary tradition which has assumed a lasting role in American culture."--BOOK JACKET. "Yet, while the haunted house motif looms archetypal in the October country of the American mind, literary critics have rarely inquired what it means or why it has endured. These are the questions at the heart of Dale Bailey's American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction."--BOOK JACKET. "Bailey traces the haunted house tale from its origins in English gothic fiction to the paperback potboilers of the present, highlighting the unique significance of the house in the domestic, economic, and social ideologies of our nation. In the hands of the best gothic writers, Bailey concludes, the haunted house has become a powerful and profoundly subversive symbol of everything that has gone nightmarishly awry in the American Dream."--BOOK JACKET.

More by Dale Bailey

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?