What do you get when you take a grouping of personal essays, infuse them liberally with horror and other pop culture references, then sprinkle in a dash of ‘90s nostalgia? The answer is simple: the best new release this reviewer has read so far in 2021!
With a stunningly original concept and precise execution, Gina Nutt’s debut essay collection Night Rooms is absolutely captivating! A series of compositions covering the landscape of a life in progress, Night Rooms puts feelings to experiences in a way readers never would have imagined possible … and one they have likely never seen before! Nutt shies away from nothing in her writing, taking bold chances with both the structure and the way she lays herself bare to the reader. From participating in childhood beauty pageants in a shopping mall to the adult milestone of buying a home, from sleepovers with high school friends to the loss of her father-in-law by suicide, Nutt’s essays weave back and forth through time, deconstructing everything from the most ordinary life events to the most painful.
Using what may at first appear to be an odd lens, Nutt has chosen to reflect upon these experiences primarily through a parallel with horror films. Jumping back and forth — often as frequently as every paragraph — between her own life and snippets of horror subgenres or oblique film references, Nutt weaves a thread between these two seemingly disparate points, pulling them closer and closer together with every word. These are not small experiences and themes she broaches; across the book the topics of death and grief, fear and tragedy, choices and mistakes ebb and flow. Nutt probes matters of identity, self-worth, and regret, as well as ideas of control and the lack thereof in our lives. She also looks deep into her own experiences with depression and anxiety, as well as how suicide has impacted her life more than once.
These are tremendous questions — What is life? What is death? Who are we and how do we survive? — and, yet, the framework Nutt has chosen provides the pacing and persistence necessary to deliver not the answers per say (because, are there really any definitive answers to such questions?), but rather an array of insights based upon her own lived experience.
Readers will be hooked by references to some of the greatest horror films of all time: Scream, Psycho, House of Wax, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to name just a few. Some are named explicitly, but most are not, with Nutt providing descriptions and placing the onus upon the reader to make the connection. The lens used to explore her life is not solely focused on horror, however — although horror films do comprise the bulk of it. Readers will find mention of classic Disney films and blockbusters like Titanic, as well as a trail of pop-culture breadcrumbs which set Nutt’s childhood perfectly in place and time. (If you were a young girl in the ‘90s, tell me you don’t remember shopping at Limited Too, wearing scrunchies and body glitter, logging onto AIM, and listening to Savage Garden?!)
It is difficult to put into words how Nutt combines these elements together to create a genuine, reflective experience without it coming across as overwritten, self-indulgent, or even ridiculous. But she does it, and does it oh so well! Perhaps it all works because, as humans, we innately have a morbid curiosity about the dark side of things, about death. Because of the equal appeal to fans of literary fiction and fans of horror on a basic, human level. Perhaps it works because it feels familiar, in the way that the mysterious and the supernatural creep gradually into your life as you come of age. Or because the best scary stories are not those with empty thrills and jump scares, but those which lay bare the horrors of the human condition.
Whatever it might be that makes the writing click, just go ahead and pick up this book. Inhale the essays one by one. Set it down and reflect back on your own lived experience. You won’t regret the opportunity to set off upon this unique journey yourself!
Night Rooms is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of March 23rd 2021. Many thanks to Two Dollar Radio for providing me with an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
Will you be picking up Night Rooms? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
“In a horror movie, an infected character may hide a bite or rash, an urge, an unwellness. She might withdraw or act out, or behave as if nothing is the matter, nothing has happened. Any course of action opposite saying how she feels suggests suffering privately is preferable to the anticipated betrayal of being cast out.”
Night Rooms is a poetic, intimate collection of personal essays that weaves together fragmented images from horror films and cultural tropes to meditate on anxiety and depression, suicide, body image, identity, grief, and survival.
Whether competing in shopping mall beauty pageants, reflecting on childhood monsters and ballet lessons, or recounting dark cultural ephemera while facing grief and authenticity in the digital age, Gina Nutt’s shifting style echoes the sub-genres that Night Rooms highlights—spirit-haunted slow burns, possession tales, slashers, and revenge films with a feminist bent.
Refracting life through the lens of horror films, Night Rooms masterfully leaps between reality and movies, past and present—because the “final girl’s” story is ultimately a survival story told another way.
