Plain Bad Heroines

issue no. 12

I am generally a wimp when it comes to anything “horror.” 

I haven’t seen a scary movie in theaters since Paranormal Activity 2 left me sleeping with the lights on for a solid week during my senior year of high school. The only possible exception to this is Parasite, which I only saw after confirming with a friend who’d already seen it and knows me well that I could handle it. 

Still, I’ve read plot synopses for the majority of the popular horror films that have come out in the decade-ish since. I hate being left out of a pop culture conversation, and also... they’re sort of fun to read? 

Given that last bit, it is maybe a mistake that I didn’t realize until this month that I might enjoy horror novels. But what it took to lure me in was this week’s book, which I saw described as “Full of Victorian sapphic romance, metafictional horror, biting misandrist humor, Hollywood intrigue, and multiple timelines.” 

How could I not? 

As it turns out, this book isn’t what I’d even describe as “scary.” It’s creepy, for sure. And several characters die macabre deaths. But it’s fun! And more importantly, it’s queer as fuck.

— Becca 

Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth

Fiction, October 2020

There’s a lot going on here, plotwise, so bear with me as I attempt a summary: 

In 1902, Flo and Clara, two students at The Brookhants School for Girls, become obsessed with a scandalous lesbian memoir by Mary MacLane. In celebration of the book, they start a private club called The Plain Bad Heroine Society that secretly meets in a nearby apple orchard. Not long after, they’re found stung to death by hoards of angry yellow jackets, a copy of the book splayed out beside them. After several more deaths on the property, the school closes for good.

A hundred and something years later, a young writer named Merritt Emmons publishes a bestselling book on the cursed, queer history of Brookhants. When the book gets picked up for a film adaptation starring celesbian Harper Harper and former child star Audrey Wells, Brookhants opens its gates for the first time in a century. 

The book switches between these two timelines, so we get to see the story of Flo and Clara unfold right as we’re seeing the present-day gals experience the creepiness surrounding everything Brookhants for the first time.

And I truly cannot overstate how queer the entire thing is. A queer principal! A creepy old gay benefactor! Multiple sapphic romances! 

It’s also a delightful work of metafiction, where the narrator, though never identified, is one of the strongest characters. They address the Reader directly with sly asides and winks, and never hold back their opinions on the other characters: 

Later, horrible Charles would say that he’d found great purpose and meaning in the fact of his life being spared that day. By all accounts he used that purpose to idle away his remaining days, spending his inheritance while failing at several half-hearted business ventures and in general behaving like the brutish, moneyed, bowl of rancid bowels that he was. 

The book also uses a copious amount of footnotes, which give room for both more asides from our narrator and bits and pieces of queer history. The stylistic choice is a nod to the fact that LGBTQ+ stories are often relegated to footnotes—which emily m. danforth explains in an introduction to the book, writing that she only learned of Mary MacLane in the first place because of one. 

But in this book, queerness isn’t only in the footnotes. It’s splashed across every single page and central to every storyline, past and present—and that’s what makes it such a joy to read. 

In the same introduction, emily writes about her Great Aunt Maude. After her death, the relatives who cleaned out her home discarded a stack of letters from women with whom she’d once had romances, eliminating any evidence of her queerness. 

After reading this anecdote, my girlfriend said she was reminded of her own queer aunt. In her words: “I didn’t know my aunt was queer until recently, and after she passed away. I don’t think this part of her was kept away from me in an act of intentional erasure, but I do think it was done because of societal views about being queer—that it’s private thing and should stay that way. But there’s so much I wish I knew about her, and so much I imagine her life was.” 

A pre-teen version of my girlfriend with her aforementioned aunt 

The reality is that despite enormous efforts to bury queerness, it’s been here all along. And though the women in Plain Bad Heroines are fictional (and cursed), their stories are a wildly enjoyable way to bring that fact to light. 

Queer points:

• +3 for ample usage of the word “celesbian” 

• +8 for multiple lesbian poltergiest jokes 

• +14 for the fact that all of the main characters and most of the side characters are queer. And there are many! It is tough for me to recall a single straight, male character, and personally, I think that’s beautiful. 

Pre-order it from Bank Square Books

P.S. In case you’re interested, lesbian-owned bookstore Charis Books & More is hosting a virtual event with emily m. danforth and Andrea Lawlor next Friday, October 23. Register here!