“‘Gothic’ isn’t the easiest word to define, but most of us know Gothic when we see it. If our best Southern writers are downright cozy with the odd cadaver and not at all squeamish about decomposition, is there something about the South that made them that way?” — Hal Crowther, “Cathedral of Kudzu”

Analysis by Fred Hobson. Reporting by Tony Early and Maudy Benz. Fiction by Randy Thornton. Also includes an interview with a former Imperial Wizard of the KKK.

Other contributors are Elizabeth McCracken, Hal Crowther, Florence King, and Roy Blount Jr.