The Gays and Their Ghosts: Natalie Adler Recommends Queer Ghost Stories
The article explores the connection between queer identities and ghost stories, highlighting their shared themes of visibility and abandonment. It discusses how ghosts in literature often represent the past's influence on the present, particularly in the context of marginalized communities. The author also provides a list of notable gay ghost stories that reflect these themes.
- ▪Gays and ghosts share a kinship, often eliciting fear and unease in those who encounter them.
- ▪Ghosts in literature symbolize the agency of the past, particularly in relation to injustices faced by marginalized groups.
- ▪The author lists several gay ghost stories that illustrate the complex relationships between the living and the dead.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Gays and ghosts have a natural kinship. Both may elicit fear in unsuspecting passerby. You may feel vaguely unmoored, inexplicably nervous at their presence, particularly if you, yourself, have an unacknowledged kinship. But when you accept the presence and fully see them, you enter into a whole new reality. Ghosts have a cheeky answer to the question of “visibility.” Better, perhaps, to have the power to choose who can see you—a jangle of chains, a nod, a hanky, a flick of the wrist. Ghosts and gays; themselves abandoned by the living, they thrive in abandoned places, cruising around rotting piers or houses in decline. Their memories of their lives before are vague, the barest shading of a time and a place.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Literary Hub.
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