A literary study of childhood in the American Gothic.

Childhood in Gothic literature has often served colonialist, white supremacist, and patriarchal ideologies, but in Uncanny Youth, Suzanne Manizza Roszak highlights hemispheric American writers who subvert these scripts. In the hands of authors ranging from Octavio Paz and Maryse Condé to N. Scott Momaday and Tracey Baptiste, Gothic conventions critique systems of power in the Americas. As fictional children confront shifting configurations of imperialism and patterns of gendered, anti-queer violence, their uncanny stories call on readers to reckon with intersecting forms of injustice.

Both undergraduate and graduate students as well as fellow scholars should find this book accessible.

Introduction
Chapter 1 - Haunted Perennial Girlhoods
Chapter 2 - Cursed Pregnancies and Uncanny Children
Chapter 3 - Gothic Boyhoods and Adult Betrayals
Chapter 4 - The Teen Girls Aren't Alright
Chapter 5 - Writing Gothic Scenes for Young Readers
Conclusion - Resistance, Resilience, and the Gothic Happy Ending