This book offers new insights on socially and culturally engaged Gothic
ghost stories by twentieth century and contemporary female writers;
including Shirley Jackson, Angela Carter, Toni Morrison, Ali Smith,
Susan Hill, Catherine Lim, Kate Mosse, Daphne du Maurier, Helen Dunmore,
Michele Roberts, and Zheng Cho. Through the ghostly body, possessions
and visitations, women's ghost stories expose links between the
political and personal, genocides and domestic tyrannies, providing
unceasing reminders of violence and violations. Women, like ghosts, have
historically lurked in the background, incarcerated in domestic spaces
and roles by familial and hereditary norms. They have been
disenfranchised legally and politically, sold on dreams of romance and
domesticity. Like unquiet spirits that cannot be silenced, women's ghost
stories speak the unspeakable, revealing these contradictions and
oppressions. Wisker's book demonstrates that in terms of women's ghost
stories, there is much to point the spectral finger at and much to speak
out about.