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Defining the Gothic: A Guest Post by Laura K. Curtis

When Dabney Grinnan asked me to define a Gothic at RWA in New York, my first reaction was to use Potter Stewart’s infamous “I know it when I see it” line. But of course, that won’t do. So for my overarching statement I will say that in a Gothic, every single aspect of the text—language, plot, setting, characterization—is in service to the mood.

And that mood is creepy.

The reader of a Gothic—whether romance or straight Gothic fiction (which tends to verge on horror)—should experience an unrelenting sense of dread, and that dread should start on the very first page. For example, the beginning of Barbara Michaels’s classic Be Buried in the Rain:

The old pickup hit a pothole with a bump that shook a few more flakes of faded blue paint from the rusted body. Joe Danner swore, but not aloud. He hadn’t used bad language for six years, not since he found his Lord Jesus in the mesmeric eyes of a traveling evangelist. He hadn’t used hard liquor nor tobacco either, nor laid a hand on his wife in anger—only when she talked back or questioned his Scripture-ordained authority as head of the family.

Or the beginning of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca:

Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited.

Yeah, that’s not going anywhere good.

Gothics don’t fit into the normal landscape of romance as we categorize it today for the simple reason that everything in a Gothic is restrained. There is no room for the blatant, whether in the form of lust or violence or comedy or romantic angst. There’s a certain lack of immediacy in a Gothic, despite the fact that all the traditional Gothics were written in the first person from the heroine’s point of view.

Many modern romantic suspense novels read like Michael Bay films, filled with nearly super-human heroic acts, explosions, and a constant need for speed. The heroes are larger than life, if not literally then figuratively (and some are literally larger—the six-foot-seven hero with shoulders out to here and muscles on his muscles is a staple of the genre. The Gothic hero is more subdued. In fact, he’s often not obviously the hero at all. In Mary Stewart’s Touch Not the Cat, the heroine knows there is a hero awaiting her—she feels him as a psychic link—but when presented with several possibilities she cannot tell which one is fated to be hers. He’s not the strongest, most masterful, most heroic actor in her play.

The tone of a Gothic is pulled back, almost dreamlike, and anything that detracts from that tone is a strike against a successful interpretation of the form. If I burst into giggles while I’m reading a book, it dissipates the aura of dread. The heroine may be sassy, but she can’t be actively funny, and despite the first person point of view I shouldn’t hear her snarky thoughts unless they’re clearly stress-induced and allow me to feel her fear and uncertainty rather than her disdain.

Which makes for a hard heroine to write. The Gothic heroine is afraid, which is something women in the modern world have been taught to avoid. Especially as women, and especially in the romance genres. Women need to be portrayed as strong, not fearful. But the Gothic heroine is brave in the truest sense of the word. She understands that she is afraid but does not let that fear overwhelm her. Hers is the voice we hear and if she is not afraid, we are not afraid.

This brings up the question of sex that permeates the modern romance genre. Sex is implied in many of the classic Gothics. In Mary Stewart’s fabulous, amazing This Rough Magic, it’s fairly clear that our heroine has been up to fun and games. But we never see more than a kiss, and it’s a quick kiss. Why this avoidance? The reason is simple: sex is a release, and the idea of a Gothic is to keep winding the tension higher. You can jump back into tension when the sex is over, but allowing the readers to watch the moments of peace and relaxation breaks the mood. You can, as a friend of mine pointed out, have creepy sex, but that’s…well…creepy.

At RWA, Dabney asked me how Gothics differed from horror, and I think there’s a fair amount of crossover. There is Gothic horror just as there is Gothic romance. Generally, the same rules apply. The lack of explicit threat, the looming, lingering dread rather than a creature feature, the all-too-human face of the evil that is finally revealed. (Yes, sometimes the evil is supernatural, but usually it’s not. Even when there are paranormal aspects, they are not the focus of the story.)

So if you find yourself staying up late and leaving a light on due a dread you cannot quite put your finger on, chances are you’ve been reading a Gothic.


Laura K. Curtis has always done everything backwards. As a child, she was extremely serious, so now that she’s chronologically an adult, she feels perfectly justified in acting the fool. Published in crime fiction, romantic suspense, and contemporary romance, she lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband and a pack of wild Irish Terriers, which has taught her how easily love can coexist with the desire to kill. She has a short Gothic horror piece in the upcoming anthology: Heroes, stories to benefit PROTECT and is working on a  full length Gothic romance. Her most recent book is Gaming the System.

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SuperWendy
SuperWendy
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08/08/2015 5:19 pm

So late reading and commenting on this post – but what Laura said :)

I came to Gothics as a teenager, being a mystery/suspense reader and was totally into them for that creepy mood, that sense of dread lingering around the dark edges. I was into them for the mystery, also the strong portrayal of female characters that were “”relatable”” to me as an impressionable young reader. They were extraordinary while, in turn, seeming like very ordinary women – if that makes any sense at all.

When I came into reading romance in my early 20s I was surprised to see how many romance readers grew up reading the same books I did. We had this shared love of the same authors (like Barbara Michaels and Victoria Holt), while sometimes coming at them from different angles.

Laura K Curtis
Laura K Curtis
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Reply to  SuperWendy
08/08/2015 8:26 pm

I knew you were a Gothic lover…I could feel it about you :)

Kenzzi
Kenzzi
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08/06/2015 7:44 pm

I haven’t read a lot of Gothics although it is one of my favourites. One book has always remained at the back of my mind as a great example of Gothics, The Seventeenth Stair by Barbara Paul. It’s a paperback at a book sale I picked up almost 40 years ago. That book is still with me on my keeper shelf. I have been looking for more Barbara Paul’s but in this digital era, her books haven’t been reissued and her paperbacks are long gone unlike Lady Mary Stewart’s . Anybody has Barbara’s, do please inform me.

Laura K Curtis
Laura K Curtis
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Reply to  Kenzzi
08/06/2015 7:56 pm

OK, now I am going to have to search that out!! It’s available on Alibris, so I will probably order a copy: http://www.alibris.com/The-Seventeenth-Stair-Barbara-Paul/book/6027111?binding=S&qsort=p

Dabney Grinnan
Dabney Grinnan
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Reply to  Kenzzi
08/09/2015 8:40 am

What’s it about?

Laura K Curtis
Laura K Curtis
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Reply to  Dabney Grinnan
08/09/2015 10:18 am

According to the blurb…

After spending most of her life at the Seminary for Daughters of Gentlefolk in Kent, Rosella Eastwood, at the age of seventeen, was now to enter a new world. She was to meet her guardian, Andre Cadel, in Paris and from there – a new life. Rosella could never have imagined the turn her life would take. She was surrounded by the de Louismonts, the family who resented her very existence. Her home, although a charming chateau in the Loire valley, was a house of hidden rooms, of eerie sounds and of mysterious accidents.

Clare23
Clare23
Guest
08/06/2015 11:52 am

I’m coming in late on this one, but I love Gothic, and I, too, think of it as my “”old-school”” or “”classic”” romantic suspense. Yay, Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt, among many others. Also, yay for appropriately scared heroines (when it’s justified and doesn’t paralyze them)! Existential dread is contagious : )

As I think about it, I realize the sense of alienation that Amanda DeWees pointed out is also pretty important to my personal definition of the gothis. That, perhaps, is where it can be something like “”female noir,”” where a character is thrust into an inherently oppositional evironment with, in many cases, no way even to conceive triumphing, only adapting and surviving.

This genre’s never been out-of-fashion in my heart, but it’s fun to think about how a style and tone that might have been considered dated can provide its own transgression and novelties all over again.

Mark
Mark
Guest
08/03/2015 9:17 pm

The Reluctant Widow by Heyer is two books in one. If you take the heroine at face value, it is pretty Gothic. If you assume she is sarcastic or facetious, it is a comedy.

Laura K Curtis
Laura K Curtis
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Reply to  Mark
08/04/2015 10:24 am

Mark –

I don’t remember that Heyer, I will have to look it up!

Eggletina
Eggletina
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Reply to  Laura K Curtis
08/04/2015 1:41 pm

The Kindle edition is on sale right now. I just recently purchased it because it’s one I didn’t already own and haven’t read yet.

Mark, that’s good to know about the book… Thanks!

Amanda DeWees
Amanda DeWees
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08/03/2015 7:21 pm

I love seeing this genre, which is very dear to me, making a comeback! For me, a key element of the gothic is the isolation of the heroine. She is on her own in an environment both new and hostile to her, and she doesn’t know whom she can trust. Even if she’s newly married, like many gothic heroines, the marriage brings her to an alien house and presents her with new challenges that her husband can’t or won’t help her face.

One of the biggest challenges for writers, I think, is that the formula is so well known and has been so thoroughly plumbed by the authors who came before us. We know now that the brooding, apparently murderous man will turn out to be the hero and that the mild-mannered nice guy is probably the villain, for example. Nevertheless I take a lot of pleasure in finding new variations on the formula in my books. In With This Curse, which was just honored with the Daphne du Maurier award in historical mystery/suspense, I reversed the usual roles of hero and heroine so that the heroine was bitter and guarded while the hero was more open-hearted and optimistic. It was a lot of fun.

Laura K Curtis
Laura K Curtis
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Reply to  Amanda DeWees
08/08/2015 8:25 pm

I agree — isolation is a major factor in the sense of threat!

Sonya Heaney
Sonya Heaney
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08/03/2015 2:19 pm

“”Especially as women, and especially in the romance genres. Women need to be portrayed as strong, not fearful. But the Gothic heroine is brave in the truest sense of the word. She understands that she is afraid but does not let that fear overwhelm her.””

I actually think this is something that could and should be applied to romance more often.

I’ve read a lot of allegedly “”strong”” and “”brave”” romantic suspense heroines recently who actually spend most of the book being weak and teary and being babied by he hero. I’d prefer more heroines who admit they’re afraid but own it and don’t let it run them over.

Laura K Curtis
Laura K Curtis
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Reply to  Sonya Heaney
08/03/2015 3:58 pm

Me, too, Sonya.Or the heroine who is TSTL because she’s so determined to prove that she’s brave or doesn’t need the hero.

Blackjack1
Blackjack1
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Reply to  Sonya Heaney
08/03/2015 6:13 pm

Good point! I love the idea of a subgenre that works against gender bias and stereotypes. I’ve never really viewed the traditional Gothic novel of the late 18-century and 19th century as a particularly progressive genre, but I’m intrigued that contemporary romance writing is constructing it in progressive ways, for female and male characters.

Sheri Cobb South
Sheri Cobb South
Guest
08/03/2015 1:30 pm

What a great post! I’m in the planning stages of an “”old school”” romantic suspense based on locations I’ll visit on my upcoming Mediterranean cruise (woo-hoo!). I knew it would require a very different “”voice”” from my other books, but was having trouble explaining that difference to my critique group. Thanks for helping me pin it down!

Laura K Curtis
Laura K Curtis
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Reply to  Sheri Cobb South
08/03/2015 3:57 pm

Sherri –

I think there’s a fair amount of interest in Gothics among readers! I wish you the best of luck with your new project, though I admit to being very jealous of your “”research.””

Blackjack1
Blackjack1
Guest
08/03/2015 12:42 pm

I like the definition of the Gothic “”hero”” above and find the understated heroic qualities very appealing, especially in comparison to the hero of today’s romantic suspense novels, by which I do agree with Curtis. I often feel that the hyper aggressive men in romance suspense today renders them them too often inaccessible for me. In Gothic novels, setting and circumstances do have a tendency to take precedence over the larger-than-life characteristics of romance suspense characters, especially male ones. I’m about to read next Simone St. James’s _The Other Side of Midnight_ and am excited about it.

Terrie Farley Moran
Terrie Farley Moran
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08/03/2015 11:59 am

Whoo Hoo! Laura Curtis nailed it. I never thought about defining Gothic but this is perfect!

LeeB.
LeeB.
Guest
08/03/2015 9:40 am

Thanks Ms. Curtis for the excellent explanation of the gothic.

CarolineAAR
CarolineAAR
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08/03/2015 9:06 am

I sometimes think of gothics as a female version of noir. The atmosphere is the same – creepy, filled with unreliable and duplicitous supporting characters, with a mystery – but the romantic partner who holds back is male. And of course we do get our happy ending!

Laura K Curtis
Laura K Curtis
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Reply to  CarolineAAR
08/03/2015 3:54 pm

I’ve never thought about the idea of female version of noir. Hmmm…I will have to spend some time on that one! :)

Caz
Caz
Guest
08/03/2015 8:07 am

What a fascinating piece – thank you! I loved Victoria Holt’s novels and still re-read them occasionally and most recently have really enjoyed books by Simone St. James. Both writers are terrific at building the sort of tension you speak of and at keeping the heroine relatable by presenting her as scared but brave and not as some sort of all-powerful super-babe!

Laura K Curtis
Laura K Curtis
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Reply to  Caz
08/03/2015 3:53 pm

Several people have recommended Simone St. James to me and I now have her in my TBR pile. I love finding new authors who have backlists I can gorge myself on.