Kristi DeMeester is the author of Dark Sisters, Such a Pretty Smile (which was selected as a Georgia Author of the Year finalist) and Beneath. Her short fiction has appeared in publications such as The Dark, Black Static, multiple volumes of The Year’s Best Horror, Year’s Best Weird Fiction, and in her short fiction collection Everything That’s Underneath. She lives, writes, and makes horror-themed candles in Atlanta, Georgia.
She is represented by Stefanie Lieberman at Janklow & Nesbit Associates. She is at work on her next novel.
DeMeester sat down with Cemetery Dance to talk about her new folk and religious horror novel, Dark Sisters, what it’s like growing up in a mega church, the increasing demand for feminist and pink horror, and book recommendations within the subgenre.
Connect with her on Instagram @kristidemeester and at kristidemeester.com.
(Interview conducted by Haley Newlin)
CEMETERY DANCE: Such A Pretty Smile garnered a lot of buzz in the horror community. What do you think readers who enjoyed that story will like about your new release, Dark Sisters?
KRISTI DEMEESTER: Dark Sisters, to me, is fundamentally a sibling to Such a Pretty Smile. Both focus on how women are silenced. Pushed to fit into boxes that simply do not fit. Each offers feminine rage and a focus on how women might reclaim the power that’s been taken from them.
I heard on the Horrifically Well Read, Bled, and Said podcast that you grew up in a fundamental Pentecostal community. What was it like calling upon that experience to write Dark Sisters? Do you think readers can expect more religious-themed horror from you?
It was…interesting revisiting not just some of those old memories associated with growing up in such a way, but also the emotions that came up as I was doing so. At the time, so much of what I’d experienced was so normal, so 
expected, that it’s taken me years to really unpack the reality of it all. And again, the emotions that existed both then, and now, as an adult, reflecting back, come and go with the intensity of flame.
Much of what came up was shock, which turned to rage, which turned to grief. Because I still carry some of those old instincts to feel shame when I display the truth of myself. But it felt like a necessary story to tell. To release myself and anyone else from old ghosts. The good girls we were expected to be. Pure. Modest. Chaste. And to open our arms to the parts of ourselves we hide.
I don’t think I could have written this book any sooner in my career. There was still too much sensitivity. Too much denial.
And yes, YES, there will absolutely be more religious-themed horror from me.
Which of the women in Dark Sisters (Anne, Mary, and Camilla) do you identify with most? Is there one timeline you preferred writing versus the others? Why?
While Camilla’s story most directly mirrored my own life, it was Mary’s story I both loved and identified with most. I think so many women go through the motions of life, numb to themselves and their own wants, because they’ve so deeply internalized expectations to believe they want those things as well. The sense of loss and longing that comes along with that is something I’ve grappled with, so while Mary’s story isn’t my own, much of what she feels are things I’ve felt. In the end, her story was my favorite. Hands down.
Can you share any inspiration behind the legend of the Dark Sisters as told by the religious community, The Path, in the novel?
While the Dark Sisters completely came out of my own brain, I grew up with a deep-seated connection to how organized religion can use fear as a weapon of control. Sunday sermons featuring cautionary tales of the physical presence of demons in our world or of hell were more than enough to keep me in line, but I also regularly experienced such things firsthand.
My church, like Camilla’s, was a mega church and had the budget for yearly plays which featured blood and gore and enough strobe lighting to leave you disoriented and terrified. While every Easter featured a full-scale production of the crucifixion and resurrection, there were other cautionary tales. One in particular featured a group of teenagers going to a party. While there, they split a single beer, and two of them kiss. Of course, they died in a car accident on the way home and paid for their sins with their souls. At five-years-old, I watched men in black-out suits with the mouths cut out, skitter down our church aisles to a red strobe light while foaming blood from the mouth and hissing.
Not the Dark Sisters, necessarily, but every bit as effective.
One of the most relatable (though infuriating) scenes of Dark Sisters was when Mary receives a domestic “gift” from her husband in place of love and support. Can you speak to the microaggressions women face in Dark Sisters and how the escalation of these breeds such disastrous effects?
I wanted to be certain that I seeded moments like this throughout the book. Moments of someone doing something they thought was best. Something that maybe someone else would see as thoughtful or kind or even necessary but had implications and ramifications that they couldn’t see. I think it’s necessary to examine things like that. Not from a place of guilt or shame but from awareness. That we need to pay attention more holistically. Get out of our own pre-conceived notions and really consider the direct effect of such actions. These are the paper cuts that add up over time, and it’s so easy to fall into them strictly because of misogyny, whether it’s deeply internalized or much more overt.
What can become more insidious is the ignorance of someone willfully participating in such things simply because it’s either what they have always known and refuse to change or seeing it as “harmless” simply because they deem it so.
There is a fierce rise of feminist horror, including Dark Sisters and your critically acclaimed novel, Such A Pretty Smile. Why do you think readers, men and women alike, are craving more stories like this? What are some feminist horror titles you’d recommend?
Women have been expected for so long to stay good. Quiet. Complacent. Smile, look pretty…Such things can only go on for so long before they start to bubble over. And once they do, there’s a need for more awareness and acknowledgement. It’s a feeling of a breath after being underwater. A feeling of finally.
Here come the recommendations, which are not exclusive, to say the least. There are loads more, but only so much time and space.
- Grey Dog by Elliot Gish
- Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
- Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
- Bunny by Mona Awad
- White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyimi
- Now You’re One of Us by Asa Nonami
- The Grip of It by Jac Jemc
- Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
- The Vegetarian by Han Kang
- Animal by Lisa Taddeo
- Deliver Me by Elle Nash
- The Eyes are the Best Part by Monika Kim
- Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth
- The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
- Godshot by Chelsea Bieker
- If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
- You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce
- The Return by Rachel Harrison
- The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh
