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Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her extra inventive work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, beneath the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and he or she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart,” revealed in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She additionally writes bookish stuff right here and on the Feminist Book Club, is the creator of A Dirty Word, and is the founding father of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring on the birds in her yard feeder. You can be taught extra at stephauteri.com and observe her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
View All posts by Steph Auteri
Content warnings: home violence, intimate associate violence, gaslighting, race-based violence, xenophobia, sexual abuse
I like a horror novel with a humorousness, and the start of Carissa Orlando’s The September House seems like a typical haunted home story, with simply a sprint of foolish thrown in. A pair strikes into a home. Supernatural shenanigans ensue. The marriage is shaken to its core as every associate offers with the hauntings in their very own approach. And so on.
When the reader is first launched to Margaret, our protagonist, she has been dwelling within the titular home for a number of years. Just a few months earlier than, her husband left her, unable to dwell within the haunted home for a single second extra. We quickly be taught that the hauntings are at their most extreme each September…and September is sort of right here.
“Everyone can make minuscule adjustments,” insists our narrator, talking of her reluctance to go away the primary home she’s been capable of name her personal. “Then there’s another change, a bigger one, but you can still adjust so easily.”
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It’s not till later that we be taught that this assertion — and all of life within the haunted home — is an prolonged metaphor.
Horror As Metaphor
It’s no secret that a lot of horror — for higher or for worse — operates as a stand-in for our real-life, societal fears. During the time when nuclear weapons have been first being developed, there was a rise in psychological horror. During the ’70s and ’80s, as “family values” have been being threatened, suburbia-based slasher movies and gory pulp paperbacks turned in style. Alien invasion tales have stood in for humanity’s concern of those that are totally different from us. And themes of plagues and the apocalypse (I learn so many of those on the peak of COVID!) nod towards our concern of infectious ailments.
More just lately, movies like Get Out and The Blackening have been direct responses to more and more seen race-based violence, and They/Them was a queer psychological thriller/slasher flick that confirmed that nothing is extra terrifying than the real-life LGBTQ+ expertise. We’ve even gotten anthologies like Other Terrors and It Came from the Closet to spotlight these themes.
Hell, our private fears get loads of air time, too. I can observe my style in horror by the levels of my life. There was that 12 months I struggled with some particularly unhealthy friendships (betrayal horror!). For a long time, I nervous about being caught as the results of a unsuitable determination (claustrophobic horror!). The second I turned a mom and was abruptly afraid of…every part (ALL THE HORROR).
Haunted Houses and the Way They Shatter Our Sense of Safety
Haunted home tales are their very own particular model of horror. The place wherein we dwell is meant to be the place we create a dwelling. Where we encompass ourselves with folks we love and with issues that symbolize who we’re — locations of security and shelter and love.
Haunted home tales — significantly haunted home tales the place the hauntings happen within the place the place we dwell on the common — shatter that sense of security.
(Though I’m not above being terrified by a haunted Airbnb. I just lately watched Barbarian whereas my household was out of city, and I ended up sleeping with meat claws subsequent to my mattress for the remainder of the week.)
But whereas all haunted home tales are, at their core, about being unsafe within the one place the place you’re supposed to have the ability to calm down, for the love of all that’s holy, they’ll additionally act as metaphors for different real-life horrors.
All the Metaphor-Laden Haunted Houses
On an mental stage, I’ve all the time been conscious that horror = metaphor. But I beloved the best way it was dealt with in Orlando’s e-book so rattling a lot; it led me to mirror on all of the haunted home fiction I’d loved just lately. And I discovered greater than I anticipated, as haunted homes aren’t essentially my favourite horror trope.
When I learn Jac Jemc’s The Grip of It, for instance, I used to be thrilled on the themes of psychological well being and gaslighting. (I achieve this love a story the place you may’t make certain what’s actual and what’s not, as they play with our means to belief ourselves.) When I learn Francesca Momplaisir’s My Mother’s House, I used to be really horrified to search out that the seemingly sentient home had lengthy harbored a horrible secret, one constructed upon (SPOILER ALERT / TRIGGER WARNING) imprisonment and sexual abuse.
In Pornsak Pichetshote’s Infidel, an house advanced is haunted by evil entities that feed on residents’ xenophobia. The Reformatory by Tananarive Due and When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen every deal with historic racism in their very own approach, with the “haunted house” of the previous e-book taking the type of a reform college and the “haunted house” of the latter e-book happening on a whole-ass former plantation-turned-wedding-venue.
When I learn How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix — wherein siblings are compelled to work collectively to promote their childhood dwelling after the demise of their dad and mom, solely to be bedeviled by a haunted puppet assortment (you heard me) — I didn’t count on to be punched within the intestine by a bigger, deeper story about sibling estrangement.
And then there’s The September House.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
The Metaphor on the Heart of The September House
Margaret speaks concerning the strategy of adjusting to life in a haunted home in a approach that jogs my memory of that boiling frog fable, the one the place it’s posited that if a frog is put into tepid water, which is then slowly delivered to a boil, it received’t understand that it’s in peril and can enable itself to be cooked to demise. It’s solely later we understand that each assertion she makes about life in her haunted home will also be utilized to the abusive marriage we don’t initially understand she’s in.
Because very like the method of discovering that one lives in a haunted home after which adjusting to life in that home, home abuse additionally usually begins out small after which builds. (“That was the first time and I barely thought anything of it. … He apologized the next day, but I barely remembered what for.”)
Much like dwelling in a haunted home could be isolating (Margaret feels deeply uncomfortable the few occasions she leaves the home), abusers additionally usually isolate their companions to be able to facilitate their continued abuse.
Much like what it takes to outlive life in a haunted home (Margaret speaks of the principles she units to make the hauntings extra bearable and the methods wherein her means to bend is her strongest asset), these dwelling with intimate associate violence additionally discover methods to handle their abusive associate, making life marginally extra bearable.
There is one passage that encapsulates all of this completely, and which hit me laborious with the sense of non-public recognition it led to.
“This house was everything I’d ever wanted,” writes Orlando-as-Margaret. “Sure, it wasn’t excellent, however typically it truly WAS. … It wasn’t horrible each single day — so few issues ever are—and when it wasn’t horrible, it was virtually beautiful. I knew the way to survive right here, and I all the time had the sense that if I simply survived lengthy sufficient, if I simply performed by the principles effectively sufficient, I may make it into a excellent dwelling as soon as and for all. I simply wanted to work a little tougher.
“I loved this house,” the scene continues. “And you didn’t give up on the things you loved.”
Oof. Suddenly, I used to be the proverbial frog, delivered to a boil by a metaphor that had slowly constructed upon itself over the course of its 300+ pages.
And that’s once I realized that, hell, perhaps haunted home tales are essentially the most terrifying horror tales of all.
Metaphors inside metaphors.
Narratives that slowly break you aside, solely to disclose your deepest fears.
For extra haunted home reads, try this record of haunted home novels by ladies, or take this quiz and get a haunted home e-book advice. And in the event you’d prefer to dig even deeper into your IRL fears, try my record of dystopian tales which are too rattling actual.
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