By Andrew Evans aka the Pickleball Librarian
March is Women’s History Month! It’s a great time to read horror books and smash the patriarchy!
Women Talking by Miriam Toews
While the first book discussed is not horror, it is definitely a horror story. This novel is a fictionalized depiction of a real-life tragedy that took place in the remote Mennonite colony of Manitoba in Bolivia. Eight men in the community were sneaking into bedrooms, using a spray to render girls and women unconscious, and then assaulting them.
“The attacks were attributed to ghosts and demons. Some members of the community felt the women were being made to suffer by God or Satan as punishment for their sins; many accused the women of lying for attention or to cover up adultery; still others believed everything was the result of wild female imagination.“
Religion and patriarchy try to downplay the horror these women suffered, making this book a chilling and necessary read.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
During the anti-pornography movement of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the U.S. witnessed an unusual alliance between feminists and the religious right, both calling for bans on pornography. This paternalistic movement could have led to a future where women had even less agency over their own lives—one eerily similar to the world in The Handmaid’s Tale.
Thank goodness Phyllis Schlafly and the Concerned Women for America didn’t get their way…
Oh, wait.
With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Atwood’s dystopian vision feels more prophetic than ever. How far will paternalistic control extend? Could we see a world where women are forced to take pregnancy tests before leaving an airport because certain states claim jurisdiction over their wombs? No matter where one stands on reproductive rights, The Handmaid’s Tale raises an urgent question: Do pregnant women remain autonomous, or do they become property of the state?
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
No one makes the Midwest creepier than Gillian Flynn. Most of her novels take place in Missouri and Kansas, featuring female characters who are as strong as they are diabolical.
In Dark Places, Libby Day was just seven years old when her mother saved her life by shoving her out a window—before being murdered along with Libby’s two sisters. Libby testified that her brother was the killer.
Twenty-five years later, broke and desperate, Libby is contacted by a group of amateur detectives in Kansas City who want to pay her to reach out to her brother. As the money flows, so does the danger. The deeper Libby digs, the stronger she becomes—and the less she fears what’s hiding in the dark.
This mix of fiction and reality-based horror offers powerful explorations of patriarchal control, resilience, and survival. Happy reading!
