“In 1790, Andrew Ellicott wrote a ‘Description of the Falls of Niagara’: ‘For about seven miles, up toward Lake Erie…a chasm is formed, which no person can approach without horror… In going up the road near this chasm, the fancy is constantly engaged in the contemplation of the most romantic and awful prospects imaginable.’ ” (p. 37)
I was born and raised in Niagara Falls, a small city on the border with Canada, and over the years plenty of people have jumped into the deadly rapids and gone over the Falls in barrels and other contraptions. Most of them died. Yes, it’s horrable.
Jeremy Dauber’s American Scary is a chronological account of horror in America. Dauber starts with the Puritans and the Salem witch trials. America was horrible to indigenous people and slaves. This led to the brutal Civil War. “When the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment was defeated on the grounds of the aptly named Poison Spring by Arkansas Confederated forces, they didn’t take prisoners: when the Confederates were ordered to move wagons full of supplies they captured, they did so by competing to see who could crush the most heads of wounded and dying Black soldiers under the wheels.” (p. 97)
Dauber analyzes Ambrose Bierce’s “The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890) with its haunting ending. Dauber also notes that the late 1800s also produced two terms we are all too familiar with today: psychopath and serial killer. The late 1800s also saw a growing interest in ghost stories. One of the best and most famous is Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. (p. 119)
Newspapers printed daily stories of gruesome events. As Joseph Pulitzer stated: “If it bleeds, it leads.” From the carnage of World War I, American soldiers returned home and found new horrors in the pages of Weird Tales. Dauber shows how H. P. Lovecraft created a Mythos of cryptic aliens like Cthulhu and mysterious books like The Necronomicon. Lovecraft invited other writers to play in his world and writers like Robert Bloch and Fritz Leiber did.
Years later, Robert Bloch and Alfred Hitchcock would shock American audiences with Psycho. Shirley Jackson increased the shock factor with “The Lottery.” Jack Finney freaked out a generation with Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Ray Bradbury jolted readers with Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Rock music also joined in. The Rolling Stones released Their Satanic Majesties Request in 1967. Around that time, Ray Russell published The Case Against Satan.
Movies of the 1970s like Death Wish and Dirty Harry presented vigilantes who fought the urban horrors. But the book and movie that kicked off an explosion of horror was The Exorcist. The paperback edition of The Exorcist sold over 50 million copies (p. 284).
The writer that transformed the horror market was lucky his wife fished a manuscript Stephen King had been struggling with out of the wastebasket (p. 294) and Carrie fueled an unprecedented writing career for the man from Maine.
“After the success of writers like King, Straub, Beatty, Tyron, and Levin between hard covers, a whole cottage industry of paperback originals sprung up starting in the seventies…” (p. 327) Bill Crider wrote several horror novels. So did Anne Rice. It may have been Rice’s An Interview With a Vampire, especially the 1994 movie version, that inspired a quirky movie and TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (p. 335)
Now we have to survive a new horror, a second Trump Presidency. American Scary can help us get through the next four years. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction: Red, White, and Black — ix
One: In the Hands of God and the Devil — 1
Two: New Country, Old Bones — 37
Three: When America’s Rivers Ran with Blood — 86
Four: Gaslights and Shadows — 127
Five: In the Shadow of the Jet Age’s Gleam — 185
Six: Revolutions and Chainsaws — 230
Seven: Weird Tales — 302
Eight: Cards from a Haunted Tarot Deck — 361
Acknowledgements — 419
Endnotes — 423
Index — 457
Speaking of horror, I’d like to recommend a book I just got from Kindle Unlimited yesterday: Sally Malcolm’s NO MAN’S LAND, a paranormal set during WWI, where the carnage of the war is juxtaposed with the carnage unleashed by a ghoul (whose presence was documented during the Norman Conquest). There are lots of parallels to our current situation, including the ever-widening gulf between the haves and the have-nots and the wealthy viewing the lower-classes as utterly disposable. I will caution that there is a romance (male-male) of a sort which is interesting because it crosses the class divide, but it’s easy to skip “those parts” if you want to. The focus is really on this…thing that is awakened by bloody violence. I haven’t finished it yet, but so far it’s quite good and has some genuinely scary scenes.
Deb, I’ll track down a copy of NO MAN’S LAND. Ambrose Bierce once wrote that the best time for murderers was a time of War where their crimes would be masked by the carnage.
I take it you remember when the Army Corp of Engineers shut down the American Falls in ’69 and discovered several bodies at the base. I too found the falls a more terrifying sight than romantic (and never understood the honeymoon connection) with the only piece of pop culture I can think of evoking the sensation I felt being 1953’s “Niagara” with Joseph Cotten and Marilyn Monroe.
Books like this can often read like academic exercises but American history is stained with greed fueled violence so the thesis is certainly viable. I don’t see a reference to Poe but surely he warrants the better part of a chapter as do the Universl horror films of the thirties and forties not to mention the films of Val Lewton.
Byron, you’re right: there’s a lengthy discussion of Poe and his influence. There are a dozen other key writers I didn’t include in my review because it would have been too long to read! While Jeremy Dauber is an academic, his writing style is very clear and concise. AMERICAN SCARY is a wonderful book!
I loved Niagara Falls from our first visit. There is no feeling like standing at the edge and watching the water go over. Last time we stayed in the hotel directly over the Falls and I watched, fascinated, from the hotel window for half an hour. I was much more impressed with the Falls than with the Grand Canyon.
That said, I doubt if this book or any other can help us get past the horror to come in the next four years.
PS to Byron’s comment: another Key Niagara Falls-set movie was Jonathan Demme’s LAST EMBRACE.
Jeff, we have to seek relief from the next four years wherever we can find it. I’ve always been mesmerized by the Falls, too. The view from Canada is superior to the view from the U.S.
I too loved Niagara Falls – so beautiful, so majestic. I can understand Jeff standing mesmerized to watch it.
I don’t understand the “urge” to jump into it – either in a barrel or freefall.
Joe would have loved this book.
Beth, sadly a mother recently climbed over the guard rail with her two small children and all three plunged into the Falls. The Park Service hasn’t found their bodies yet. Some people are attracted by the Falls…for the wrong reasons.
I’m optimistic about the next four years and take note that despite the grim things that happened in history, many more positive things happened to offset them! The Renaissance, The Age of Enlightenment, The rise of the Beatles! You who are butthurt can stew in your juices all you want, I’m smelling the flowers!
Bob, I hope you’re right. But History tells us Second Terms are usually duds.
Ah, the sweet sound of insult that manages to be crude yet self-satisfied.
I’ll never understand how some people behave in dangerous situations at a rock or fall or …
I have wonderful memories of Canada’s Niagara Falls, I’ve probably written about it but I’ll just repeat myself:
When I was 63 years old I found a wonderful woman in Hungary (over 60 too …) who was also interested in the Americas (and science fiction …) but of course had had no chance for a visit.
So when Hungary entered the Visa Waiver Program in 2008 I got an ESTA online and took her to Miami Beach on a cheap flight in November as a test and she was so happy.
Then in March 2009 there were cheap offers for flights to JFK, hotels in Manhattan and even Niagara Falls in Canada.
So I concocted a plan and booked a weekend in Secaucus just across the Hudson from Manhattan, a car, two nights in Niagara Falls and another weekend in a hotel in Manhattan near the East River.
It was so fantastic – but not expensive since the Euro was worth almost one and a half $.!
When we arrived at our hotel in Canada near the river the friendly receptionist looked at us and asked: Would one bed be enough for you?
When I agreed he gave me a paper and a room card and up we went to the 18th floor where I first looked on the “land side” but then found out that our room was on the river side.
It was really fantastic with a gas chimney, a large bathtub/whirlpool for two and a large window with a wonderful sight of the Falls!
And then I realised that the window could be opened a bit so in the evening we watched the lightshow and listened to the falls …
Oh, I also should mention that it was March – and the Falls were half frozen, gigantic icicles – unbelievable!
And the next day we drove along the river to Niagara on the Lake and on the trip back we visited the winery Konzelmann, owned and managed by a Schwab family – unbelievable and unexpected that near Niagara in Canada you would find fields of grapes and peaches.
Fond memories …
Totally forgot:
On our way to Niagara we spent a night in Geneva near the Finger Lakes and on our way back another night near Bethel where Woodstock happened, went to the museum of course.
Wolf, for many many years, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for mentally disturbed people. Plenty of suicides and plenty of risk-addicts going over the Falls in barrels and other contraptions!
Lovely, Wolf.
Does this book jump around as achronically? “The Lottery” was a decade+ earlier than PSYCHO, novel or film (though THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE was published in ’59 with PSYCHO).
Grue isn’t the same thing as horror in art…grue, after all, is all too human, while horror is about what’s supernatural…at least when we speak of horror fiction, drama, et al.
Also, some typos, George—“horrable” and “Beatty, Tyron” for Blatty and Tryon. Notable how that list of best-selling horror writers goes in nearly precisely reverse order chronologically, as well.
Todd, once again WORDPRESS us changing my words. I’ll fix them when I get back to Western NY next week. It’s too hard to fix stuff with a laptop keyboard and small print.
And the recentish film that made the biggest splash in re: Niagara was THE FUGITIVE. THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT is the sleeper in this category…
THE OFFICE (US) with the wedding of Pam and Jim might be the biggest television reference over the last decade or so, at least in the US.