America Is a Haunted Place

ONE YEAR AND THREE months into the COVID-19 global pandemic, in 2021, journalist Michael Maupin discovered an art exhibition opening at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) titled Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art. He was instantly hooked and traveled to its tour location in Louisville, Kentucky, as well as its return home to Minnesota.

"The exhibition was one of the finest I’ve ever seen," he writes in this exploration of the exhibit paired with matching stories from American literature. "Thrilling. Brilliant, truly. And funny enough, it still haunts me." Maupin deftly weaves American literature and his family's history to American culture and art. The result of his journey—America Is a Haunted Place—was published in four parts on Substack from February 2025 to May of that year. It includes artwork by Grant Wood, Thomas Cole, Marvin Cone, Alison Saar, George Tooker, John Jota Leaños, and Julia Thecla, to name a few.

Paired with American founding myths and legends, Native American tales and ghost stories, and works by American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Washington Irving as well as modern writers such as Rod Serling, H.P. Lovecraft, L. Frank Baum, Robert Bloch, Caitlin R. Kiernan, and Fritz Leiber, the book includes commentary by exhibit curator Robert Cozzolino and author Jeanette Winterson.

Which horrors does America choose to remember?

Preorder your copy now to find out.