The writing duo Quinn Connor composed this fantastic roundup of books and movies that capture the Southern Gothic setting. Get to know their style and their books as they explore the Southern stories that capture the region’s often mythical and mysterious mood.

Southern creators are trying to tell you: this place is a lot to process.

In our novel The Pecan Children, one of our heroines photographs her decaying hometown, and sees much more than she bargained for. If Sasha were to try to capture “The South” in photos, what would she photograph? A pitcher of tea beside a porch swing, perhaps; kudzu crawling up the side of a ruin; bones, beneath a canopy of oaks. The truth is, there are as many images of the South as there are artists to capture it. The elusive nature of this region we call home is enchanting—and deeply haunting.

William Faulkner said, “Everyone in the South has no time for reading because they are all too busy writing.” Even with two spooky Southern Gothic books out in two summers, we—the writing duo Quinn Connor—are still writing about it, and luckily, so are a lot of other people, with a lot of different takes. Our second novel, The Pecan Children, is a kind of creepy Southern parable about small towns, queerness, and the bizarre burden and joy that a hometown is.

But, it’s true, Southerners write a lot of stories. And why do we all have so gosh darn much to say? And why does it so often tend toward magical realism, or literary horror?

One reason is too often unspoken: the legacies of deep pain that exist in this land. The American South is a landscape that was shaped by enslavement, by racism, by Civil War, by dramatic differences between those who have and those they make sure have nothing. These dark histories fill up a land with unfinished business. The South is a land of restless spirits that no storytelling can ever appease.

Yet we tell stories anyway. The South is a meeting ground of many kinds of folks, with rich lores and mythologies all their own. There’s a million backroads, a million secrets hidden beneath the tangle of ivy. And it’s hot as hell. The heat brings bad dreams, and when it’s hot there’s nothing to do but talk. At midnight, Johnny bargains with the Devil at the crossroads. A catfish spits up pearls. Vampires stalk the streets of New Orleans.

The Pecan Children by Quinn Connor

In a decaying Southern town plagued by mysterious fires, sisters Lil and Sasha Clearwater must confront the haunting legacy of their land. As the familes around them sell their orchards and leave, Lil, bound by a secret covenant, vows to stay. Sasha returns to their land to reconnect with her past love and help protect their home. Amidst ghostly fires and troubling folklore, the sisters face the phantoms of their pasts and the threats to their future, realizing that in their kudzu-choked town, nothing is as it seems.

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So, come on down, y’all. We’ve put together a list that passes our Southern Gothic vibe check.

Books:

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward (2023)

A true southern epic and Pulitzer hopeful, Let Us Descend follows Annis, a young woman enslaved on plantations, as she calls upon the spirits in the land and of her ancestors to forge her own path to freedom. This unflinching story of Black self-liberation brings together violent histories of enslavement and the spirit world in a powerful alchemy that leaves readers breathless.

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Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves by Quinn Connor (2023)

Okay yes, this is our own book. But it’s our list, so we make the rules. Our debut novel, Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves, was born from our childhoods spent at lakes in Arkansas and Texas, where time slips away and subtle magic just seems more possible than it does in the city. Underneath the waters of Lake Prosper is a flooded town. And during one humid summer, the lives of three women will be thrown into chaos when its secrets rise to the surface.

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Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (2011)

After her mother dies, a young girl whose family owns an alligator amusement park goes on an adventure through the Florida bayou in search of a treasure to save her home. This brutal, mystical, bizarre book is totally singular; we’ve never read anything like it! Told through a child’s eyes and Dickensian in scope, Swamplandia! is prepared to break its own magic spells to drive the story home. Like a sick, twisted To Kill a Mockingbird.

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The Little Friend by Donna Tartt (2002)

Of all her work, Donna Tartt’s second novel, The Little Friend, brings the reader the closest to her own Southern roots. In the early 1970s, Harriet Cleve Dufresnes, an exceptionally bright young girl, struggles to solve the mysterious death of her brother. But everyone seems like a suspect and the more she learns, the more the truth slips through her fingers like Mississippi mud.

Will this book infuriate you? Yes.

But will you be utterly lost in this cruel coming-of-age? Also yes.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Movies:

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

Beyond the levees, in the Louisiana Delta, the small community of The Bathtub is constantly on the verge of being swept away. But to six-year-old Hushpuppy, it’s the most beautiful place in the world. Myth and reality collide in the young girl’s mind when her father falls ill and floods destroy their home. It’s a heart-rending story about climate change, poverty, life and death, filtered through the eyes of a child. [now streaming on Hulu]

Big Fish (2003)

Big Fish, directed by Tim Burton and starring Ewan McGregor’s dimples, is one of those movies that walks a fine line between ridiculous and heartfelt. Focused on the nature of storytelling, this is the tale of a son trying to understand his dying father, who’s known for telling tall tales. The way those fantastical Southern parables unfold on screen will make you wish the world was a little more magical.

Bones and All (2022)

A story of the bond between two outcast “eaters,” Bones and All is about family history, identity, and the deepest, purest and most perverse kind of love. Luca Guadagnino’s fingerprints are all over it as he captures the unpretentious backroads of America with the same reverence as he did the sun-soaked Italian countryside in Call My By Your Name. This is Southern horror, beautifully rendered. [now streaming on Prime]

The Beguiled (2017)

In the last days of the Civil War, a deserter Union soldier is taken in by the women and girls of a southern seminary school, who nurse him back to health. But relationships soon begin to curdle as the artifices of southern gentility and isolation at the old school strain beneath the pressure, with deadly results. This feminist reimagining by Sofia Coppola is a portrait of the desire and frustration of women, its lush setting a thin veneer over the apocalypse of war. [now streaming on Netflix]