DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/WK51-KD12
Defense Date
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts
Department
English
First Advisor
Gretchen Comba
Second Advisor
SJ Sindu
Third Advisor
Shermaine Jones
Abstract
It is 1924 and Annette Rivers, a young, black jazz singer, has been offered the deal of a lifetime. In return for an unimaginable amount of money, she will aid a reclusive, white author named Arthur Vontegrey in penning a musical—all she must do is travel to Richmond, Virginia, and live at his estate, the Delario House. Nettie’s career is finally beginning to take off, but Arthur’s deal offers her exactly what she has always yearned for—a freedom that she believes only financial security can provide.
But the longer Nettie stays, the more she realizes that they are not alone in the house. The dead are everywhere here—the ghost of her enslaved ancestor plagues her at night, a white woman’s spirit insists upon passing a strange grimoire off to her, a kind young man whom she befriends turns out to be the long-dead brother of the very author with whom she works. And Arthur himself is no less strange. He disappears for days at a time, is cold and aloof, and offers little guidance on the musical he had seemed so desperate to write. And at night, doors open to rooms that do not exist in the day, hallways stretch to nowhere, and the very walls seems to breathe and shift all around her. But the more they work together, the deeper Nettie falls in love with Arthur. And despite the house’s strangeness, she begins to feel bizarrely attached to it, as well. As the months pass, so too does her desire to leave. And as Nettie begins to unravel the secrets of the Delario House, she discovers the real reason.
A curse keeps the dead living in this place, and it ensures that the living cannot die. And this curse is weaving its way into Nettie too, ensuring that soon, she, like Arthur and the other tenants of the estate, will never be able to leave—not permanently. The very freedom that Nettie came to the house hoping to attain may be taken from her forever. And worse, she discovers that Arthur, the man for whom she has fallen, has lied to her. He brought her to the house not to write a musical, but in the hopes that she could take someone else’s place in the curse, her freedom to be traded for theirs. Nettie must find the courage to break this curse—one that was put into place by her ghostly ancestor who haunts the halls, and sometimes, Nettie’s dreams.
The Delario House is a 100,000 word adult gothic novel. For fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic, this book explores themes of blackness, freedom, ownership, found family, and ill-fated love. In The Delario House, Shirley Jackson’s ghost stories meet Nella Larsen’s Harlem Renaissance narratives.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
7-29-2025