Review of Japanese Gothic—Beautiful Hauntings

Review of Kylie Lee Baker’s Japanese Gothic, a horror novel combining Gothic conventions with Japanese historical setting. The narrative follows Lee Turner, an American college dropout hiding in his father’s traditional house in Chiran, Japan, after committing an unsolved murder, and Sen, the ghost of a samurai woman from three centuries prior. The review examines Baker’s use of unreliable narration and psychological unreality, noting Lee’s sedative addiction and memory gaps create uncertainty about his self-perception and judgment. The novel engages with Gothic traditions established by authors like Shirley Jackson, exploring themes of family dysfunction, neurodivergence, and the tension between appearance and reality. While positioned within the contemporary Gothic resurgence following Mexican Gothic, the work maintains a quieter, more introspective tone focused on entangled lives navigating trauma and temporal displacement.

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