Gwendoly Kiste/These Gilded Ghostly Hearts on Meet Your Maker
Summary
Brian and Jeff welcome returning guest Gwendolyn Kiste, four-time Bram Stoker winner, to discuss her new novel In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts, a ghost-story extension of The Great Gatsby.
Kiste shares current horror joys (new releases, Ray Bradbury’s The October Country, and Disney’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow) and explains her long fascination with Gatsby’s gothic elements, murder, longing, and the mansion’s haunted-house feel, especially once the novel entered public domain.
Set in 1955 Manhattan, her book follows Daisy and Tom’s daughter Pamela “Mel,” now blue-collar after her parents lose their wealth, and explores class, wealth inequality, and a fraught mother-daughter dynamic.
The conversation also addresses queer subtext in Gatsby and her sequel, shifting LGBTQ+ rights, her strong anti-AI views, nostalgia versus futurity, and enthusiasm for modern retellings, ending with debate about Robert Redford’s Gatsby.
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