Courtney Gould, The Dead and the Dark (2021)
Content warning:
Death, discrimination and bigotry, hate crimes, hate speech, murder, torture, violence
Synopsis
The Dead and the Dark is a young adult horror novel set in Snakebite, Oregon, a fictional Eastern Oregon small town. The narrative follows 17-year-old Logan Ortiz-Woodley, daughter of two TV paranormal hunters. Snakebite is her dads’ hometown and they return after being gone for 13 years. Coinciding with their arrival is the disappearance of a teen and the deaths of a few more. The town believes the Ortiz-Woodleys are the cause and shun them. Ashley Barton, heir to half of Snakebite and Barton Ranch, suspects the paranormal. She needs assistance finding her missing boyfriend and enlists Logan’s help to do so. A tenuous partnership grows into something more as Logan and Ashley fall for each other and fall down a rabbit hole of town secrets, truths of their families, and discovering themselves.
Essay
Starting off this project with the question of “What is Oregon?” troubled me. Why, of course Oregon is the state line borders and something is either within them or outside them. Plain and simple. Gould’s novel, though, takes a large focus on where people are from and how personal identity is tied with place. For Logan, the longest she had lived in one area was three years in Los Angeles and she did not consider herself to be “from” anywhere. She is mystified by the townspeople of Snakebite and how connected they are with where they’re from.
This got me thinking: Is Oregon people? The state borders have only existed for a finite amount of time. There were Oregonians before there was Oregon. The land and the place and the people have made Oregon be Oregon. Not so plain and simple.Because if Oregon is people, the common thought goes to Portland and the populated Willamette Valley. But who is accounting for the thousands of square mileage outside the Valley holding the rest of the population?
That’s why The Dead and the Dark and novels like it representing Eastern Oregon are so important to the idea of Oregon literature. Without their stories incorporated in the conversation of what Oregon is, then the entire question becomes exclusionary of other identities outside an urban metropolis. Gould is from Oregon and took inspiration from multiple Eastern and Central Oregon cities to craft Snakebite. This inclusion of people and their stories is Oregon.
Being from Oregon herself and loving rural lands, Gould’s commitment to showing a side of Oregon not typically considered when brought up in conversations about the state is a dynamic choice. Oregon and the place that you’re from — that pesky idea of home, if you will — within the novel centers on communities and relationships.
Snakebite is shaped by the people who live there and their values. A rural charm is presented with a high school graduating class of twelve, a town sheriff known by all, and the few diners where everyone is a regular. Community is built into small towns and that’s a part of what Oregon is.
There is reverence in the nature surrounding the town, the forests and the Snakebite lake and hills that depict a well-known Oregon outdoors, but the subtle isolation of a ranching town far from big cities also creates a sealed Ziploc of town culture that is unwelcoming to outsiders. The Snakebite locals shun the Ortiz-Woodleys upon arrival because of their identities. A repeated phrase in the novel is “Snakebite is Snakebite” — meaning the view of outsiders is hardly ever going to change.
In part, this is why I picked The Dead and the Dark to include in a guide to Oregon literature. While LGBTQ+ identities may be included vastly in the narratives of places like Portland, the representation and hardships of queer kids in the rural areas of the state are overlooked in conversations. There is a fear component within small towns because of the mob-mentality shown within Gould’s novel. There is, though, a hopeful mood shift at the closing chapters that give voice to a rural queer kid’s experience and highlights the end of the long-suffering tunnel. Oregon is the identities of all, no matter where their seat at the table may come from.
Author Bio
Courtney Gould was born and raised in Salem, Oregon and graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in 2016 with a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing, Publishing, and Marketing. Her novel The Dead and the Dark won the Leslie Bradshaw award for Young Adult Fiction (2021), was nominated for Ladies of Horror Fiction Award for Best Young Adult (2021), and won the Oregon Book Award for Young Adult Literature (2022). Gould has also published two novels, Where Echoes Die and What the Woods Took; was included in two short story anthologies, The Gathering Dark and The House Where Death Lives; and is releasing her fourth novel, Until the Last Light Goes Out, on October 13, 2026.
Further Reading
Courtney Gould, Where Echoes Die (2023)
- Horror, sapphic, rural setting
Kristina McMorris, The Girls of Good Fortune (2025)
- 2020s literature, Oregon setting (Portland), fiction, Oregon author