Southern Gothic

'The Ghost of Bernadette Soubirous,', 1890, photograph
"To grow up in the South is to be fed a steady diet of grits and ghost stories. Ask any household in Alabama, and they’ll tell you about a friend or family member with a rogue phantom that blows out candles or stomps around in the attic. Being haunted is a permanent condition below the Mason-Dixon, one that defines the region as much as the voracious kudzu and the iced tea so sugary it hurts your teeth. William Faulkner, who was known to spin particularly scary fireside stories, described the Deep South in Absalom, Absalom! as 'dead since 1865 and peopled with garrulous outraged baffled ghosts.'"
The Paris Review - Margaret Eby