Texas Gothic

Amy Goodnight knows that the world isn't as simple as it seems. She also understands that "normal" doesn't mix with magic, and she's worked hard to build a wall between the two worlds. Not only to protect her family, who are all practicing witches, but to protect any hope of ever having a normal life herself. Ranch-sitting for her aunt in Texas should be exactly that: good old ordinary, uneventful hard work. Only, Amy and her sister, Phin, aren't alone. There's someone else in the house with them--and it's not the living, breathing, amazingly hot cowboy from the ranch next door. It's a ghost, and it's more powerful than the Goodnights and all their protective spells combined. It wants something from Amy, and none of her carefully built defenses can hold it back. This is the summer when the wall between Amy's worlds is going to come crashing down. A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year An ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults Praise for Texas Gothic: [Star] "You can't get much more Nancy Drew. . . . This engaging mystery has plenty of both paranormal and romance, spiced with loving families and satisfyingly packed with self-sufficient, competent girls."--Kirkus Reviews, Starred [Star] "Teens looking for a rollicking adventure filled with paranormal events, dastardly evildoers, and laugh-out-loud moments as Amy and Ben argue and snipe their way to love will adore this book."--School Library Journal, Starred "The author mixes suspense, humor, and lots of local flavor. . . . The enjoyable sum is a lively teen ghost story with sex appeal."--The Horn Book "A deeply affectionate rendering of Texas landscapes and legends combines with an appealing cast of well-developed characters to give texture to this well-plotted mystery; truly scary moments are balanced by the humorous bumbles of the awkwardly developing romance between Amy and Ben, as well as Phin's sublime cluelessness about the way her eccentricities appear to other people."--The Bulletin

It began in the 1800s. In the Texas town of Mineral Wells, people drinking the strange-tasting water claimed to be cured of insanity, rheumatism, and terminal illness. Discovery of the phenomenon beguiled thousands of tourists, curiosity seekers, and the afflicted who desperately sought cures. Yet, the town that promoted its “crazy water” attracted eccentric citizens, including wealthy Will and Anna Johnson, who, unable to cope with the deaths of their children, spared no expense in preserving the bodies for entombment in a mausoleum; paperclip inventor David Galbraith, the builder of a house in the shape of a honeycomb; and influential mortician Bob Beetham, who gained power by keeping the town’s secrets. In Texas Gothic, author James Pylant also uncovers the mysterious life of beautiful and ambitious Mineral Wells resident Corinne Griffith. After becoming a famous star of the silent screen and one of America’s richest women, she made a shocking courtroom claim that she was not the “real” Corinne Griffith. Under the looming 14-story Baker Hotel, Mineral Wells thrived with visits from movie stars; yet, the “crazy water” beckoned exploiters and predators. Texas Gothic reveals true tales of the town’s forgotten past: murder, white slavery, prostitution, and mysterious deaths.

800x600 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Prairie Gothic is full of Texas lore. Erickson (author of Hank the Cowdog) tells his family saga of growing up in northwestern Texas. His family encountered significant historical figures, such as Cynthia Ann Parker, and includes members of the Estacado Quaker colony. Erickson tells the story of Martha Sherman, who died at the hands of the Comanche, and the tale of the notorious outlaw Tom Ross. Prairie Gothic also includes Erickson’s encounters with famous Texas writers, such as John Graves and J. Evetts Haley.

Parasites and perverts: an introduction to gothic monstrosity -- Making monsters: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein -- Gothic surface, gothic depth: the subject of secrecy in Stevenson and Wilde -- Technologies of monstrosity: Bram Stoker's Dracula -- Reading counterclockwise: paranoid gothic or gothic paranoia? -- Bodies that splatter: queers and chain saws -- Skinflick: posthuman genderin Jonathan Demme's The silence of the lambs -- Conclusion: serial killing.

Gang-related violence has forced thousands of Hondurans to flee their country, leaving behind everything as refugees and undocumented migrants abroad. To uncover how this happened, Jon Carter looks back to the mid-2000s, when neighborhood gangs were scrambling to survive state violence and mass incarceration, locating there a critique of neoliberal globalization and state corruption that foreshadows Honduras’s current crises. Carter begins with the story of a thirteen-year-old gang member accused in the murder of an undercover DEA agent, asking how the nation’s seductive criminal underworld has transformed the lives of young people. He then widens the lens to describe a history of imperialism and corruption that shaped this underworld—from Cold War counterinsurgency to the “War on Drugs” to the near-impunity of white-collar crime—as he follows local gangs who embrace new trades in the illicit economy. Carter describes the gangs’ transformation from neighborhood groups to sprawling criminal societies, even in the National Penitentiary, where they have become political as much as criminal communities. Gothic Sovereignty reveals not only how the revolutionary potential of gangs was lost when they merged with powerful cartels but also how close analysis of criminal communities enables profound reflection on the economic, legal, and existential discontents of globalization in late-liberal nation-states.

The Rural Gothic in American Popular Culture argues that complex and often negative initial responses of early European settlers continue to influence American horror and gothic narratives to this day. The book undertakes a detailed analysis of key literary and filmic texts situated within consideration of specific contexts.

Previous ed. published in 2009 by Leisure Books.

From an Edgar award-winning author comes the gripping and unexpected tale of a lost town and the dark secrets that lie beneath the glittering waters of an East Texas lake. Daniel Russell was only thirteen years old when his father tried to kill them both by driving their car into Moon Lake. Miraculously surviving the crash—and growing into adulthood—Daniel returns to the site of this traumatic incident in the hopes of recovering his father's car and bones. As he attempts to finally put to rest the memories that have plagued him for years, he discovers something even more shocking among the wreckage that has ties to a twisted web of dark deeds, old grudges, and strange murders. As Daniel diligently follows where the mysterious trail of vengeance leads, he unveils the heroic revelation at its core.