The Yellow Wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman

   If you live anywhere near where I do (i.e. THE TRUE NORTH STRONG AND FREE) you know that it is really, truly, winter. When the first real snow comes I react like King Theoden looking over the valley in front of Helm's Deep, with many a "so it begins" and a "this is your life now."

we understand one another

      All this to say that the season that I am on the lookout for spooky scary reading is past (and I read The Shining / Stephen King and it was plenty scary so I got my fill) and it was purely by chance that I stumbled on this short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Someone on the world wide web mentioned it, saying something like "1892 story about postpartum depression" so naturally I needed to read it, unaware that it is also extremely creepy. Ladies and gentlemen it is so short, and since it was published way before 1923 it is on Project Gutenberg and you can read it for free here: The Yellow Wallpaper. It is a mere 6,000 words. Go read it.

   Hopefully you've read it now because OH MY GOSH, AM I RIGHT? Was the "creeping" as terrifying in your head as in my head? How much is your rage roiling against her physician husband? The poor woman! The poor baby! The poor man! Surprising insight into the effects of depression on the side of CPG! I looked her up, and she also wrote a short book called Herland which is also written from a feminist perspective and is also free online so of course I am going to read it. Wikipedia says that she was a "prominent American feminist, sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform" to which I say, "sounds like my kind of historical lady, minus the racism which becomes evident upon further reading." Also: TURNS OUT The Yellow Wallpaper is semi-autobiographical. AND she taught herself to read when she was five.