Published in 2000, William Gay’s Southern Gothic short story ‘The Paperhanger’ centers on the mysterious disappearance of Zeineb, a young girl from a wealthy Tennessee mansion whose Pakistani-born father is a Princeton-educated doctor. The narrative opens in the final moments before her vanishing, framing the account through the perspective of a paperhanger hired to work on the family home. Gay anchors the piece in gothic mode through architectural details, atmospheric tension, and the house itself as a central Gothic element. The story explores themes of absence, loss, and the metaphysical through the cipher of Zeineb’s erasure—described as dissolving ‘into the abstract.’ The setting, regional specificity, and existential dread characteristic of Southern Gothic tradition establish the work within a lineage traceable to Poe and Faulkner, examining how space and supernatural presences intertwine with human tragedy and spiritual void.
Original article published on Generally Gothic — AI-generated summary.
