Our story begins in
1902, at The Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two
impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring
young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling
memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own
private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in
secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness
and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies
are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the
victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five
years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors
forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the
property, each in a most troubling way.
Over a century later,
the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when
wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating
the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed”
Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial
horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl
Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress
and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens
its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to
begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just
grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves
off and Hollywood begins.
A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations, Plain Bad Heroines
is a devilishly haunting, modern masterwork of metafiction that manages
to combine the ghostly sensibility of Sarah Waters with the dark
imagination of Marisha Pessl and the sharp humor and incisive social
commentary of Curtis Sittenfeld into one laugh-out-loud funny,
spellbinding, and wonderfully luxuriant read.
Reviews
“Plain Bad Heroines wears its brilliance lightly and like the Black Oxford apples described in these pages, it's dark, sweet, and addictive. Emily Danforth displays all the gothic wit of Edward Gorey and all the soaring metafictional ambitions of David Mitchell, alongside a generosity and humanity that is uniquely her own. Simply one of the best books I've read in the last decade.” (Joe Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman)
“Brimming from start to finish with sly humor and Gothic mischief, Plain Bad Heroines is a brilliant piece of exuberant storytelling by a terrifically talented author.” (Sarah Waters, New York Times bestselling author of The Little Stranger and Fingersmith)
“About as sweeping a plot as one can get . . . the book is very much worthy of a read—and a perfect escape for these times.” (Entertainment Weekly)
“Stuffed with footnotes, and stories inside stories inside stories, Emily M. Danforth’s follow-up to The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a queer Gothic coming-of-age story set at a cursed New England boarding school for girls. There are just a few sequences of words that fire up my pleasure centers the way that description does.” (Vulture, 19 Books We’re Excited to Read This Fall)
“A delicious horror comedy with enough stories within stories to make even Inception seem straightforward. . . . Add in some stunning illustrations, and this book becomes the year's must-read horror novel.” (Popsugar, Our 35 Picks for the Fall's Most Exciting New Books)
“A short list of things you’ll find in this novel: curses, lesbians, gilded-age society scandals, yellow jackets, a heaping dose of snark, and the nagging sense that the line between what’s real and what isn’t has been blurred. . . . It’s the perfect autumn read for you and your best friend that you’re secretly in love with, trust me.” (Buzzfeed, 38 Great Books to Read This Fall, Recommended by Our Favorite Indie Booksellers )
“A delicious Gothic tale . . . a tasty brew of creepy shuttered prep school, creepy reopened prep school, queer feminist legacy and modern adaptation of said legacy . . . will make you crave more of Danforth’s smart, funny prose.” (Bethanne Patrick, Washington Post)
Emily M. Danforth
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