A Play about a Curse

Caroline Macon Fleischer delivers a literary horror novel centered on Corey, a passionate young playwright who feels like an artistic nobody. After her mentor, Maxine, an award-winning living legend of American theatre, rejects Corey’s dreams of collaboration, the younger woman seeks revenge. She visits a clairvoyant in a violet-lit Dallas strip mall and unleashes a life-altering curse upon her professor. The narrative follows this Machiavellian plot as Corey pursues Maxine to a prestigious playwriting residency in Chicago, where their paths become fatally entwined. The story unfolds through three acts and two interludes, structured like a theatrical production that blurs the line between performance and reality. As Corey pushes her mentor toward theatre’s haunted margins, the boundaries of the real world begin to crumble. This work reads like an A24 film, blending psychological horror with a theatrical fever dream. It examines the dark power struggle between creator and creation, suggesting that achieving one’s dreams requires another person to suffer a nightmare. Readers who enjoy literary fiction with supernatural elements will find this compelling. Fans of traditional ghost stories may prefer clearer boundaries between the real and the magical. The book suits those interested in the mechanics of artistic ambition and the cost of success. It does not offer light entertainment or simple resolutions.