Roswell was home to a number of textile mills in the 19th century that began producing Confederate military uniforms after the Civil War broke out. When Union troops arrived on their March to the Sea, they burned down the mills, charged the 400 women and children working there with treason for supporting the Confederate war effort and sent them north. Roswell author Emily Carpenter asserts in the author’s note of her new Southern Gothic novel “Gothictown” that many of these workers went unaccounted for after their dispersal.
Carpenter couldn’t shake this turbulent slice of her town’s history and used it to build the foundation of her sixth book. Inspired by Shirley Jackson’s 1948 short story “The Lottery,” about the residents of a small American town who randomly choose one person to be the town’s annual sacrifice, Carpenter inserts a sinister spin on the unknown outcome of Roswell’s missing figures.
The elders of fictional Juliana, Georgia, make a similar deal in “Gothictown,” — albeit in secret. While Jackson’s chilling tale leaves the question unanswered, Carpenter opens her narrative with the backstory about why somebody in Juliana must die. This history forms the backbone of a supernatural element threaded throughout Carpenter’s story.
Juliana’s founders were desperate at the end of the Civil War to avoid becoming yet one more Southern hamlet sacked by General Sherman. They concealed the town’s prosperity by sealing up all evidence of their gold mine — complete with the women and children inside who were conscripted into working the mine while the men were off fighting the war.
The trapped workers died while Sherman’s men were looting Juliana. Yet the soldiers never discovered the gold mine and didn’t set the town on fire, leaving Juliana to become one of a few places to thrive during Reconstruction. Juliana’s elders attributed the town’s triumph to the miners’ sacrifice and took an oath pledging another death whenever the town faltered.
Unlike Jackson’s “The Lottery,” only the prominent descendants of Juliana’s founding families — the Cleburnes, the Dalzells and the Minettes — are aware of this dark history. Now, two years post-COVID, Juliana is depleted and in dire need of a population boost. The elders launch the “Juliana Initiative” offering dirt-cheap Victorian homes and generous business grants to anyone willing to relocate to their beloved “Gentle Juliana.”
Billie Hope is a New York restaurateur who jumps at the chance to secure a fresh start for her family after closing her eatery during lockdown. Her 6-year-old daughter Meredith is on board with the move. Her therapist husband, Peter, is not.
Regardless, Billie is desperate to reinvent herself after she used her “restaurant savings” to buy her mother a house in New Jersey — a house Billie’s mother sold when she joined a cult and moved to Maine. Like mother, like daughter, it seems as Billie ignores the red flags and convinces herself temperate Juliana, “blue-skied and softened with a caressing breeze, thick with green trees and flowers and climbing vines,” is the perfect place to raise their daughter and build generational prosperity.
She falls in love with the stately Dalzell-Davenport home, situated on 12 acres and a steal at just $100, and she picks out a location for her restaurant next door to charming Jamie Cleburne’s antique shop. Peter knows Juliana is too good to be true, yet his pessimism is no match for Billie’s enthusiasm, and he acquiesces to his wife’s plan.
But as soon as they arrive, the problems begin. While driving up to their new house, the Hopes discover a law enforcement vehicle’s flashing light and yellow caution tape at the abandoned mill next door. What happened, no one will say. And they’re told there’s an uncapped well on their property “way over yonder toward the bluff, before you get to the creek” that isn’t reflected on the county plat map.
Peter frets over Meredith’s safety and becomes obsessed with finding the well. He scours their property — only to turn up empty while his paranoia ratchets over the thought of his daughter falling into the hole. Eventually, Billie starts paying attention and suspects there isn’t a well but something else on their property the town’s “old guard” doesn’t want them to find. Most oddly, their docile house cat Ramsey turns feral shortly after they arrive, and Meredith begins to fear him.
As if those oddities aren’t enough, sleep disturbances plague the entire family. Peter can’t sleep at night but conks out at the drop of a hat during the day, leaving him irritable and distracted. Billie has a recurring nightmare about crying children huddled together in the darkness around an old woman who keeps asking, “What have they taken from you?” She shakes off her unease until she learns her sweet little daughter is having the same dream.
As the strife between Billie and Peter builds and suspicion surrounding Juliana’s residents increases, handsome Jamie Cleburne becomes Billie’s principal source of support. But Jamie wants more from Billie than he should. He may even be the reason Juliana originally solicited Billie’s move to town. Unfortunately for Jamie, he’s about to learn Billie possesses enough grit to take on Gentle Juliana and all the town is hiding — even if she makes questionable decisions and commits plenty of blunders along the way.
Emily Carpenter packs a multitude of twists and turns into “Gothictown,” delivering a cozy gothic mystery with a high entertainment value. But peering past the murder, romance and supernatural intrigue, this story is ultimately an exploration of privilege and the lengths people will go to maintain the upper hand.
FICTION
“Gothictown”
by Emily Carpenter
Kensington
368 pages, $28
AUTHOR EVENTS
Emily Carpenter. Bookmiser hosts a launch party 6 p.m. March 25. Deep Roots Wine Market & Tasting Room, 1055 Canton St. Unit 100, Roswell. -770-676-6146, deeprootswine.co
Emily Carpenter. Book release party 6:30 p.m. March 27. Read It Again Bookstore, 3630 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 314, Suwanee. 770-232-9331, read-it-again.com
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