As the story unfolds, the reader learns about the Faustian bargains each one has struck to achieve their own desires over time, it becomes clear that both Alex and Libbie are caught in a conspiracy far larger than either of them could ever have imagined. In early-twentieth century Rhode Island, Libbie, the Brookhants headmistress, and her partner, Alex, find themselves haunted by the girls’ deaths, and also by the moral compromises they’ve made in order to live the lives they desire within the constraints of their era.

The book alternates between two primary timelines. In her first novel for adults, Danforth ( The Miseducation of Cameron Post) takes her premise and explores its consequences in truly surprising ways. Ambitious and far-reaching in scope, Plain Bad Heroines is at once a gothic horror story and a metanarrative about the ethics of representation and the human cost of making art. From this dramatic opening, the novel traces the repercussions of this tragedy for those who knew these women, and for a group of people who, over a hundred years later, try to recreate the event in the form of a horror movie. Danforth’s Plain Bad Heroines opens with a scene that will haunt the rest of the novel: two young lovers–students at the Brookhants School for Girls in Rhode Island–die in a horrific wasp attack at the dawn of the twentieth century. “I wish some one would write a book about a plain, bad heroine so that I might feel in real sympathy with her.” –Mary MacLane, I Await the Devil’s ComingĮmily M. Plain Bad Heroines is an Engrossing Gothic Horror Story

Plain bad heroines