Trad Wives, Social Media & the Horror of Losing Yourself with Sarah Langan

This week, I talk with Sarah Langan about her novella Bloody 13 and her horror novel Trad Wife!

Listen to hear about:

• The inspiration behind Bloody 13, and the conflicting reactions to it when she initially published it.
• How Sarah Langan turned the trad wife movement into horror, using the seemingly idyllic online lifestyle to explore control, gender roles, motherhood, and the systems operating beneath the aesthetic. 
• Why accusations of “selfishness” can be so powerful against women, and how Trad Wife examines the difference between selfishness, agency, and basic survival. 
• How neglect, isolation, and high-control environments affect mothers and children, and why Langan uses supernatural horror as a way to make those less-visible forms of harm tangible. 
• Why Langan loves ambiguity in horror, how The Yellow Wallpaper and other classic horror influenced Trad Wife, and why she’d rather leave readers thinking than explain every mystery.

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Gare Billings @gareindeedreads

Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland

Halley Sutton @halleysutton25

Brian Watson @readingwithbrian

MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba

Erin Ashley @bellametaphor