{"id":126362,"date":"2025-08-07T12:51:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/126362\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T12:51:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:51:23","slug":"explore-spooky-chicago-history-chicago-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/126362\/","title":{"rendered":"Explore spooky Chicago history – Chicago Reader"},"content":{"rendered":"

For most of my life, I\u2019ve been the kind of reader who skims the back of a horror novel, thinks its premise sounds fascinating, but ultimately chickens out before cracking it open. Growing up as a sensitive kid with a vivid imagination and a severe case of evangelical rapture anxiety, I wasn\u2019t exactly a prime candidate to become a horror convert in adulthood. But after hearing enough bookish people rave about horror\u2019s ability to explore real-life fears from the safe distance of fiction, I\u2019ve recently been dipping my toes into the genre.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re a horror-curious reader like me or a seasoned fan, the new collection Red Line: Chicago Horror Stories serves up a smorgasbord of styles, themes, and perspectives that will satisfy a range of tastes. Edited by Michael W. Phillips Jr., these stories delve into spooky Chicago history and painful aspects of modern urban life, employing a range of supernatural and speculative elements while maintaining a strong sense of place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Red Line: Chicago Horror Stories<\/strong> edited by Michael W. Phillips Jr.
From Beyond Press, paperback, 246 pp., $13.99, frombeyondpress.com\/product\/red-line-chicago-horror-stories<\/a><\/p>\n

Red Line: Chicago Horror Stories<\/strong> release party8\/27, 6 PM, Comfort Station, 2579 N. Milwaukee, comfortstationlogansquare.org<\/a>, free<\/p>\n

The anthology features 19 Chicago-area writers of diverse ages, genders, and ethnicities, from established authors such as Cynthia Pelayo, the first Latina to win a Bram Stoker Award, to newer voices like R.L. Gehringer, a septuagenarian and former cab driver who took up writing in retirement. Under the umbrella of horror, the collection\u2019s eclectic subgenres include science fiction (\u201cThe River\u2019s Revenge\u201d by Jen Mierisch), ghost stories (\u201cThe Last Graveyard Shift at the Englewood Branch\u201d by Tara Betts), and cosmic battles (\u201cLi\u2019l Flubber\u201d by Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.).<\/p>\n

Pelayo opens the book with \u201cSaint Maker,\u201d an atmospheric tour of Chicago\u2019s graveyards that introduces many of the ghosts, saints, sinners, and devils who \u201chaunt our bloodlines.\u201d \u201cChicago is heaven and hell. We are above and we are below. . . . There\u2019s a thread of viciousness that runs through our parts, yet there\u2019s a glimmer of holiness to it too,\u201d Pelayo writes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This deep sense of local history continues through several other early selections, including Sandra Jackson-Opoku\u2019s \u201cLucky Charms,\u201d a time-travel tale featuring the young daughter of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the Black man known as the first non-Native settler and founder of Chicago, and his Potawatomi wife, Kitihawa. In the epistolary \u201cNotes from the Dunning Asylum,\u201d Aleco Julius imagines a sinister case of mistaken identity set in a notorious mental institution, evoking the psychological fascination of gothic classics such as Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula and Wilkie Collins\u2019s The Woman in White.<\/p>\n

In addition to its enticing offerings for history buffs, this collection excels in its treatment of contemporary terrors, especially those faced by vulnerable populations. Nick Medina\u2019s \u201cA Good Kid\u201d captures the dreadful sense of inevitability surrounding gun violence for many of the city\u2019s youth, taking a moving, personal approach to an issue that is often sensationalized in news coverage. In \u201cJust Another Friday Night in Bucktown,\u201d Lauren Emily Whalen spins a gritty revenge tale about femme, nonbinary, and queer burlesque performers taking back their agency after years of harassment and exploitation. Child sexual abuse, suicide, police brutality, and elder abuse feature in other stories, as noted in the content warnings at the end of the book.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Collectively, Red Line\u2019s contributors create a thrilling mosaic of Chicago\u2014past, present, and future\u2014in all its complex, terrifying beauty. From golden hour on an el platform to the labyrinthine depths of Wacker Drive, familiar settings become unforgettably uncanny in these writers\u2019 hands. And for the record: this scaredy-cat\u2019s to-be-read list now includes several novels by authors that I first read here.<\/p>\n

Reader Recommends: ARTS & CULTURE<\/p>\n

What’s now and what’s next in visual arts, architecture, literature, and more.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Film\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tAt Corbett vs. Dempsey, Rosa Barba disavows analog nostalgia.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tJuly 30, 2025July 30, 2025\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Cultivators\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tBrian Leber and Joanne Aono have found a saner, more sustainable way of living on Bray Grove Farm.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tJuly 30, 2025July 31, 2025\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Who\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tA new Griffin MSI exhibit spotlights steelworkers in the Calumet region.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tJuly 16, 2025July 29, 2025\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"House\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\u201cFar Down the Phantom Air\u201d joins the prehistoric and the postindustrial.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tJuly 15, 2025July 15, 2025\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tAn after-dark exhibition at Bodock requires flashlights to see\u2014or find\u2014the art.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tJuly 14, 2025August 3, 2025\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\u201cHouse of Earth\u201d argues that objects can be everything.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tJuly 10, 2025August 3, 2025\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For most of my life, I\u2019ve been the kind of reader who skims the back of a horror…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":126363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818,77589,77590,77591,77592,76504],"class_list":{"0":"post-126362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois","11":"tag-jean-baptiste-point-du-sable","12":"tag-michael-w-phillips-jr","13":"tag-reader-recommended","14":"tag-tara-betts","15":"tag-vol-54-no-44"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114987577127101355","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}