Can't Play Dead: A Southern Gothic Novella
Date
2022-05
Authors
Martin, Julia
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Abstract
Evie Goddard has spent most of her life in solitude on her family’s West Texas homestead, isolated from the world and touched only by a few close calls with the Great Depression and the beginnings of World War II. Her father, Lloyd Goddard, a man as deeply religious as he is repressed, spends his days evangelizing in the shed out back, reciting and rewriting the gospel, much to the dismay of his scorned wife. Rebecca Goddard, an unwilling matriarch, refuses to acknowledge how profoundly disturbed she is by the timeline she finds herself within—and sometimes without. After the Great Depression forces the young family out of a comfortable life in Dallas and onto the desolate family estate, Rebecca is set to fill the same role as her late mother and serves as the matron of her own childhood home.
When the past begins to repeat itself and Evie finds herself falling into the same missteps as her mother, Rebecca begins to unravel, catapulting the family into turmoil and uncovering sin that was never meant to see the light of day. As her mother and father both withdraw into their pasts, Lloyd finds himself freely indulging in his faith, while Rebecca begins losing touch with reality altogether. Evie, disturbed in her own right, begins to wonder if her family will be able to cling to each other when they need unity the most, or if the wickedness of their pasts—and its reverberations in their present—will pull them apart at the seams. Can’t Play Dead follows a family at odds with their own sin, facing the trauma and violence of war, of love, and of religion, and asks what happens when the people you are supposed to love and be loved by so deeply are the ones you may need to fear the most.
Description
Keywords
southern gothic, gothic, novella, creative writing, Honors College
Citation
Martin, J. (2022). Can't play dead: A southern gothic novella. Honors College, Texas State University.