In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts

Stoker winner Gwendolyn Kiste holds up a dark, queer mirror to The Great Gatsby in In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts, a haunting exploration of the obsession and control at the edges of an American classic.

In 1955, Daisy Buchanan is found dead in an abandoned West Egg mansion, but her daughter Mel knows she's really been gone for years. No one knows whether Daisy was murdered, or if it was a simpler, slower death: her yearslong spiral of alcohol, abuse, and helplessness. But when Mel enters the estate, she finds Daisy's ghost, somehow frozen at twenty-three, and a charming, bleeding phantom that used to be Jay Gatsby.

To free her mother, Mel must carve a path through family secrets and decaying revelers: deep into Gatsby's starving house as it gorges itself on unfulfilled love and grows stronger every night.