White, Emily E.

Through a Glass Darkly is about grief, ghosts, monsters, and mothers. To be more specific, it is a haunted story about the silencing of women, particularly female authors. Its roots draw inspiration from a darker version of Mary Shelley, and the lives of female authors before and after her. While researching Evelyn Buchanan, a socialite from the nineteenth century, Ophelia Williams becomes infected by an otherworldly house with a history. As her narrative intertwines with the fragmented findings of Evelyn and Evelyn’s mysteriously stolen novel, Ophelia experiences postpartum psychosis, brought on by her own complicated family history and personal trauma. Together, Ophelia and her ghosts work to unsilence Evelyn Buchannan. To do this, she and they must rise above their own versions of grief, or what time has painted as monstrous hysteria.