Most Gothic Place Names in the United States--South Dakota

For previous entries, click the "Most Gothic Place Names" label under Features in the right sidebar.

I struck gold in South Dakota, unearthing such priceless names as Moreau (a House of Pain on every street), Mound City (major necropolitan area), Jolly Dump (delighting in detritus), Black Eyes (a community full of damaged reputations), Crook City (what Deadwood should have been called?), Batesland (where the peep holes aren't confined to front doors), and Badnation (a country-wide indictment).  But when it comes to Gothic place names in this state, the following is as good as it gets...

Bad Wound.  It's hard not to imagine such a town having a bloody history.  Or perhaps the injuries suffered here are of the more intangible (but no less grievous) nature.  The kind that fester inside a person, and call for terrible vengeance against whoever perpetrated the perceived misdeed.

The Gothicism of American Gothic: "Strong Arm of the Law"

[For the previous entry, click here.]

The eighth episode of American Gothic opens with Caleb and his sidekick Boone sneaking up onto a porch at night to catch glimpse of a naked woman.  The would-be voyeurs, though, are shocked to discover no bathing beauty but rather a group of pig-masked figures busy drowning a man in a tub.

Will Hawkins, the victim, had recently endorsed a rival candidate for the position of town sheriff, leading Deputy Ben to doubt that Hawkins's death was a mere accident.  Further suspicion falls on Lucas Buck when a band of lawless brothers arrive in Trinity and begin shaking down local business owners (under the flimsy pretense that they are collecting for charities such as the "Sheriff's Retirement Home").  But Buck is not responsible for the presence of the criminal quartet, who have chosen the wrong Southern town to stir up trouble in.  The Sheriff's qualities as a Gothic hero-villain are never more evident than when he first smooth-talks the brothers (leading them to believe that he approves of their misbehavior), and then methodically takes vengeance against them.  Justice is is chillingly dispensed: one brother, in Poe-esque fashion, ends up buried alive alongside Will Hawkins in the latter's coffin.  And the episode's climax offers a scenario that prefigures the traps of the Saw films: Buck handcuffs two of the brothers together (one has been trapped inside a wrecked, overturned car), sticks a burning road flare inside the gas tank, then tosses the captives a knife and proposes that they try to free themselves by cutting off a hand at the wrist.

An exploding gas tank soon decides the matter for the hoodlums.  Prior to meeting this grisly fate, the brothers had also run afoul of Caleb.  Midway through the episode, they sneak into Caleb's room in the boarding house, accosting him for making off with their suitcase full of stolen goods.  The tables are turned, though, and Caleb ends up putting a scare into his visitors by unleashing a beastly roar.  Caleb credits his (unseen) sister Merlyn with the supernatural assistance, but one can't help but wonder if the boy (dubbed a "demon child" by one of the spooked brothers) is really infused with Buck's ungodly powers.

Identify the Stylist

[For the previous round of this game, click here.]

Think of this as the literary equivalent of the old game show Name That Tune.  Can you identify the author of the following passage based on its stylistic hallmarks?

Haunted houses, forbidden houses.  The old Medlock farm.  The Erlich farm.  The Minton farm on Elk Creek.  NO TRESPASSING the signs said but we trespassed at will.  NO TRESPASSING NO HUNTING NO FISHING  UNDER PENALTY OF LAW but we did what we pleased because who was there to stop us?

Our parents warned us against exploring these abandoned properties: the old houses and barns were dangerous, they said.  We could get hurt, they said.  I asked my mother if the houses were haunted and she said, Of course not, there aren't such things as ghosts, you know that.  She was irritated with me; she guessed how I pretended to believe things I didn't believe, things I'd grown out of years before.  It was a habit of childhood--pretending I was younger, more childish, than in fact I was.  Opening my eyes and looking puzzled, worried.  Girls are prone to such trickery, it's a form of camouflage, when every other thought you think is a forbidden thought and with your eyes open staring sightless you can sink into dreams that leave your skin clammy and your heart pounding--dreams that don't seem to belong to you that must have come to you from somewhere else from someone you don't know who knows you.

There weren't such things as ghosts, they told us.  That was just superstition.  But we could injure ourselves tramping around where we weren't wanted--the floorboards and the staircases in old houses were likely to be rotted, the roofs ready to collapse, we could cut ourselves on nails and broken glass, we could fall into uncovered wells--and you never knew who you might meet up with, in an old house or barn that's supposed to be empty.  "You mean a bum?--like somebody hitch-hiking along the road?" I asked.  "It could be a bum, or it could be someone you know," Mother told me evasively.  "A man, or a boy--somebody you know..."  Her voice trailed off in embarrassment and I knew enough not to ask another question.

The distinctly female point of view (and a narrator given to transgressive behavior as a young girl)...

The theme of mother-daughter strife...

The Gothic settings (American farmhouses in ruins)...

The long paragraphs and labyrinthine sentences...

...This must be the work of Joyce Carol Oates.

(The passage is taken from the opening [p. 3-4] of the title story of Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque.)

The Most Ominous Garage in the Macabre Republic...

...Stands just up the street from where I live.

I doubt even Buffalo Bill would dare stash a decapitated victim inside this place.

Gotta love that sign that's been posted.  (Trespassers can't say they weren't warned!)

Most Gothic Place Names in the United States--South Carolina

For previous entries, click the "Most Gothic Place Names" label under Features in the right sidebar.

Digging up Gothic names down South was no problem whatsoever: consider Stiefeltown (suppression guaranteed), Barefoot (and brewing moonshine, I bet), Shadow Wood (count on being secretly followed), Wide Awake (the kids are up all night on Elm St.), Crowburg (where humiliation's suffered on a daily basis), Ravenwood (outgrowth of Poe?), Alligator Lake (the picnics never lack for excitement), Hell's Half Acre (property of Mephistopheles), Quarantine (the height of isolation), and Graves (the folks here are extremely down to earth).  Still, I'm throwing caution to the wind and nominating the following as the most Gothic place name in South Carolina...

Ware Place.  Visitors and citizens alike are advised to tread carefully here; it sounds like a place that wrings unease from people.  The kind of town featuring an archetypal sheltered-and-dilapidated home--a suitable domicile for Michael Myers or Boo Radley, but perennially shunned by the rest of the populace.