Midwestern Gothic

2024 SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD WINNERFour gothic novellas from the novelist of Kill Creek and Violet, praised by the New York Times, National Public Radio, and the American Library Association. In The Door in the Field, a construction worker's bad day becomes a far worse night when drinks at an off-the-books bar send him down an unforeseeably bloody path. In The Boy in the Woods, something evil has infected the counselors at a summer camp, and a young boy will have to do anything he can to survive the night. In One Half of a Child’s Face, a woman spying on her daughter and ex-husband notices an odd painting hanging in an empty apartment . . . one that seems to call to the building’s children. In Wear Your Secret Like a Stone, a big-box clerk discovers that her book pick for a Halloween display echoes a dark secret hidden beneath the idyllic facade of her hometown. With this collection, Scott Thomas digs his hands into the soil of the American heartland and establishes himself as a master of Midwestern Gothic. Read more