Oklahoma Gothic: Horror in Flyover Country

Oklahoma Gothic: Horror in Flyover Country

When most people think of Gothic horror, they imagine crumbling castles, fog-drenched moors, or Spanish moss hanging off antebellum mansions. But Gothic doesn’t belong exclusively to Europe or the American South.

There’s a different kind of Gothic hiding in the plains and hills of Oklahoma.

Maybe we don’t have vampires in stone towers or ghosts in plantation ballrooms. What we do have are empty fields, flooded riverbanks, and forgotten towns, all echoing with loss, faith, and secrets passed down in whispers. We have rural churches barely clinging to their congregations, nursing homes filled with memories that no one wants to inherit, and a history soaked in weather, blood, and silence.

That’s Oklahoma Gothic—and it’s exactly where The Dead of the Day lives.

Welcome to the third of thirteen posts inspired by my upcoming literary horror novel The Dead of the Day. Obviously, in this one we’re looking at some of the Gothic elements in Oklahoma.

I’ve lived all of my life in this state. I know the smell of wet red clay after a storm. I know the way an old barn can seem to breathe when the wind moves through it just right. I know how the stars look when you’re standing on a dirt road, alone, and there’s not a streetlight for miles. And I know how quickly grief, guilt, and old family stories can turn into something like folklore when nobody wants to speak the truth directly.

In The Dead of the Day, the horror isn’t just supernatural. It’s soaked into the land and the people. It’s in the way generations carry sins they don’t understand. It’s in the floodwaters that keep rising. It’s in the isolation of a nursing home where a man like Enoch Hoffmann can come back from the grave and no one notices at first—because being forgotten is just part of life out here.

Oklahoma isn’t flashy. It’s not “high concept.” But it can be deeply unsettling in the quietest, most personal ways. It’s a place where the past never quite stays buried. Where the land remembers even when the people try to forget. Bury something and it won’t be long before the relentless wind uncovers it. This is a place where religious faith and deep superstition live side by side.

I wanted The Dead of the Day to reflect that reality. It’s a story born out of flyover country. Rooted in guilt, in drought and flood, in old grudges and buried truths. It’s not Southern Gothic. It’s not Midwestern Gothic. It’s Oklahoma Gothic.

If you like horror that feels real—slow-burning, character-driven, and anchored in place—I think you’ll find something to sink your teeth into here.

The Dead of the Day is available for pre-order now in paperback and ebook formats at Amazon.

It’s not flashy horror. It’s Oklahoma horror. That means it might just stick with you longer, like cornbread or sin.

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Question for you:
What’s the creepiest thing you’ve ever experienced in a rural place? A house? A field? A back road?

Tell me your story in the comments.