Beyond Stephen King: Three Books By Female Horror Writers To Terrify The Patriarchy

Stephen King has rightfully earned his place at the top of horror writing’s pantheon. Partially due to the ease with which his books translate to cinema, his characters are some of the most easily recognizable of any page-to-screen adaptations of the genre.

But even Stephen himself knows it’s deeper than the popularity of film versions of books. In a rare interview with Rolling Stone two Halloweens ago, King admitted that yes, “to a degree, I have elevated the horror genre.”

Today’s suggested scary read: anything by Stephen King. We all float down here… #PennyWiseInk #Halloween pic.twitter.com/EnNrZW2HfI

— Wise Ink Publishing (@Wiseink) October 17, 2016

That’s not to say that plenty of other masterful horror writing hasn’t slipped under the radar while Stephen continues to dominate, particularly the work of female writers — many of whom are compared to King in flattering terms, or, in some cases, predate him, leaving their fingerprints all over his work.

1. Shirley Jackson

Ms. Jackson is one such literary giant. Lauded by just about every modern horror author, Stephen’s adoration is no exception. In Danse Macabre, King describes the opening paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House as one of the finest passage ever written, calling it “the sort of quiet epiphany every writer hopes for: words that somehow transcend the sum of the parts.”

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

Here, Stephen chose to highlight her most well-known book, but Jackson is perhaps even better remembered for “The Lottery,” a short story that shocked readers of the New Yorker when it was first published in 1948. King has also commented at length on that piece of fiction.

“Perhaps more than anything else, the horror story or horror movie says it’s O.K. to join the mob, to become the total tribal being, to destroy the outsider. It has never been done better or more literally than in Shirley Jackson’s short story ‘The Lottery.’ Here, the entire concept of the outsider is symbolic, created by nothing more than a black circle colored on a slip of paper.”

2. Caitlin R. Kiernan

What a crying shame the cover of Kiernan’s The Red Tree is. Just flip through GoodReads, and you’ll see diehard fan after diehard fan complaining how this misstep in marketing has probably robbed this book of the audience it deserves forever. Even someone who has waded through the depths of spooky literature will likely find the disturbing, surreal Rhode Island ghost story quite upsetting.

Fortunately, the book’s banishment from the mainstream might be ending soon. Mid-World Productions — owned by the writer of the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand — has optioned the cult horror novel for a film which Kiernan is writing the script for. Her follow-up novel The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, for which she won the 2012 Bram Stoker award, may also hit the screen in the coming years.

The Poet Of The Lost: Rediscovering Caitlin R. Kiernan [Fantasy Week] https://t.co/ldYZMT5B3E pic.twitter.com/ZOxg1oLJRl

— Comics Alliance (@comicsalliance) October 25, 2016

3. Helen Oyeyemi

Much like Stephen himself, it’s difficult to classify the books of Helen Oyeyemi as just horror novels. Not only are there elements of fantasy present throughout, but she expertly weaves in social issues that add a certain element of grotesqueness even to her less supernatural work — also, much like King.

The young author was frequently compared to Stephen in the press — along with other horror greats like Jackson and Henry James — particularly for her novel White Is For Witching, an unsettling coming-of-age story about a girl with a bizarre eating disorder. She even once mentioned King as an influence in an interview with Aesthetica.

“All things I aspire to — as a writer I want to be affecting. Which is why I like Stephen King… I think the Gothic elevates the experience of reading, but it’s not the only form of fiction that can do it. Bad Gothic writing can be so numbing.”

Of course, if you’d rather revisit one of the many Stephen King books that serve for perfect Halloween week reading, one can hardly blame you. From Carrie to The Shining, dozens of his novels are infinitely re-readable.

[Featured Image by Mario Tama/Getty Images]