dark academia

there are some things worse than homework

Sep 24, 2024

I wish I had a juicier hook into today’s shelf but alas I did not attend an Ivy league institution with a shadowy history nor was ever invited to join exclusive, secretive gatherings of students that were in thrall to a misunderstood genius of a professor who led them to ruin. Probably because my dad was the principal, not because they didn’t want me.

Though BookTok would have you believe dark academia is only about the aesthetic, I find there is a bit more to it than that. This genre is different from the previous school shelf in that these schools aren’t magical though they have supernatural elements and pursuits that go beyond simply the academic. To belong in this category I think the book needs to have: overly glamorous and excessively atmospheric depictions of the school setting and its dark underbelly, an unreliable misfit of a narrator, a charismatic and hypnotic mentor leading a small clique of students who already attend an elite institution creating a Russian doll-like situation of factions within factions, an obsession with the classics and a highly romanticized view of anything esoteric, arcane and historical, murder and/or mysterious death(s), a ghostly gothic tone heightened by the historical halls of the school and Dionysian levels of revelry that combine with intellectual pursuits and spiritual quests. All of these thrilling ingredients power today’s titles and I think these books are just right for this time of year when we tend to wax nostalgic for the good old times of scholarly pursuits.

In a smoky library with a window looking out onto the quad, grab a cozy armchair1 and pour yourself a hefty tumbler of whiskey as you get lost in one of these.

NINTH HOUSE by Leigh Bardugo

Alex Stern, a twenty year old high school dropout running with a rough LA crowd, has been offered a full ride at Yale. This offer comes with a job too, as the ‘Dante’ of Lethe House serving under its ‘Virgil’ Daniel Darlington. Lethe is in charge of keeping the other Houses of the Veil, Yale’s ‘Ancient Eight’ secret societies that each specialize in a branch of arcane knowledge, from overstepping the strict rules that keep the rest of campus2 safe from their shadowy rituals. Scrappy, broke, uncouth and lacking in booksmarts Alex3 is a controversial choice for the esteemed position but her ability to see “grays”4 without the aid of dangerous elixirs make her necessary because inexplicable happenings are afoot at Yale. When a young woman is murdered and the occult rituals at the societies begin to break out of their boundaries, Alex realizes she is in way over her head. Though she may never be welcome among this pretentious crowd she may be the only one able to discover the truth because, after all, this isn’t her first murder scene.

This is dark, creepy and imaginative; a blending of the scholarly with the supernatural that is atmospheric and compelling. We’re thrown straight into the story and have some timeline jumping with a good amount of character, setting and world building rules to get straight, so pay attention. This is a dark academia book after all, it isn’t going to spoon feed you. It is quite horrifying to think of elitist frat bros and entitled intellectuals tampering with the supernatural… some truly scary stuff in that combination. However, I was delighted to learn that these houses are inspired by their real life counterparts with thrillingly spooky names like: Skull and Bones,5 Aurelian6, Book and Snake7, Wolf’s Head8 and Scroll and Key9.

This book follows Alex’s and Darlington’s POVs as they encounter some seriously freaky shit: rites and rituals gone wrong, terrifying otherworldly creatures, tombs, spells and wards, ghosts and legends on top of a murder mystery. Resourceful and sharp, Alex has suffered severe trauma and is a good foil for the snobby and superior ‘golden boy of Lethe’ Darlington so their team up has some tension filled ups and downs which are fun to follow. This is twisted, dark and graphic and the brick lined, history filled setting of Yale University lends an exciting sense of realism to the story while its suspenseful chapter endings continually pull you along until its perfectly hair raising final line.

Extra Credit: Leigh Bardugo's Book About Yale's Secret Societies Will "F*ck You Up A Little"

Alex didn’t have money. But she did have power. She’d been afraid of it, afraid of staring directly at that blood-soaked night. Afraid she’d feel regret or shame… But when she’d finally looked? Let herself remember? Well, maybe there was something broken and shriveled in her, because she felt only a deep calm in knowing what she was capable of.

THE SECRET HISTORY by Donna Tartt

In the early 1980s Richard becomes fixated on the old, ivy covered walls and leaf strewn paths of Hampden College in Vermont so desperate to leave his sun soaked, breezy, superficial California existence, he transfers there. His self described fatal flaw is ‘a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs’ and he believes his life will truly begin when surrounded by a more beautiful, apt narrative atmosphere. Though at first he is stuck on the outside yearning to be included, admired and mythic, like the small exclusive group of classics students who study under the magnetic genius Professor Julian Morrow, eventually his dream comes true and he is invited to join. All other classes and friendships abandoned, he jumps wholeheartedly into this new cohort that soon overshadows everything else. However, his insecurity and outsider nature doesn’t entirely disappear and when it becomes clear the rest of the group have participated in mysterious activities that have far reaching consequences, Richard is forced to confront his own complicity and morality.

Published in 1992, this is the dark academia novel, the ‘foundational text’. So if this genre if your thing then consider this required reading. All other dark academia novels will be compared to this one and indeed, the writing in this is above and beyond anything else I’ve read in the genre. Purposefully, it reads as pretentious and a bit in love with itself so it is long, slow and dense. It’s not a slog though and paired with a crisp October day, a scarf you can fling about your neck and a view of your local university towers this will feel just right. The characters are snobby, obsessive, frustrating and endlessly cerebral so though you may not emotionally connect with them, their descent into darkness is fascinating and hard to look away from. Because we enter through an outsider’s perspective, we are attached to Richard’s desperate quest for inclusion until it morphs into something freakish, sinister and depraved. Its immediately obvious10 that the depths that this group will sink to in pursuit of their curiosity paired with the complete conviction of their superiority can only end in tragedy, but the journey, mystery, atmosphere and the promised satisfying climax is altogether terrific. I read this feeling disgusted, intrigued and relieved in turns and enjoyed feeling studious again for its 500+ pages though am happy to never encounter these people in real life.

Some things are too terrible to grasp at once. Other things - naked, sputtering, indelible in their horror - are too terrible to really grasp ever at all. It is only later, in solitude, in memory that the realization dawns: when the ashes are cold; when the mourners have departed; when one looks around and finds oneself - quite to one's surprise - in an entirely different world.

CATHERINE HOUSE by Elizabeth Thomas

Against all odds Ines has been invited to attend Catherine House, the mysterious and prestigious college located deep in the Pennsylvania woods behind an iron fence. Students give up everything to live and study on the sprawling grounds for three years because graduating from Catherine is a ticket to all of their wildest ambitions; its alumni go on to become leaders in whatever industry they pursue and power and prestige is a given. To most of the students the isolation is a price to pay but for Ines, the seclusion is its entire appeal. Though initially unambitious, lazy and uncaring Ines eventually forms a found family and her time at the school becomes sacred, more than an escape, a home. When she’s invited to join the mysteriously exclusive lab studying under the secretive M. Neptune she must finally decide who she is, what she wants and how far she will go to achieve it.

In all honesty I didn’t love this; but it was intriguing, well written and slots perfectly onto today’s shelf. I’ve never read a protagonist quite like Ines: she is a reluctant narrator and seems to get off on being withholding from the reader as revelations about her character often come from dialogue even though this is a first person POV. She is astoundingly apathetic, blunt and unmotivated while also being astute, perceptive and shameless with a flat sense of humor that takes a beat to get because she can be so deadpan and disinterested. It was hard to get emotionally invested in her but, because she was such a unique protagonist I was consistently curious even if took almost the entire book to get me to care for her.

The school is creepy and cult-y with bizarre rules and requirements and its all expense paid / dream come true scenario means that many of its students are ‘there desperately’. All of their hopes, traumas and passions converge, bursting into wild shenanigans and disordered minds as they become more and more removed from the outside world. The pacing here is slow and soporific with only dollops of intrigue; we sort of meander about with Ines encountering sporadic events that confuse yet titillate. The tone, message and vibe of this is a combination of Vita Nostra, Ninth House, 1984, Saltburn and Get Out so if that all intrigues you give it a try. Being a dark academia novel of course we get: elitist secret societies, cryptic yet compelling mentors, loads of debauchery and revelry that feel reminiscent of ancient times, gothic architecture with the house as a character, obscure rituals, obsessions with death, quests for divine transcendence and supernatural knowledge with a dash of hermetic magical elements. While the twist was predictable and I often felt stymied by the pacing and protagonist, I do think this was inventive and skillfully written. These frustrations are all intentional I think, which made this sit with me more than if it had been the typical pulpy vibes I originally anticipated. If you read it, comment here and lets chat about it.

Catherine promised its students a golden future, if we gave up a few things in return. Three years of no mothers, fathers, brothers, or sisters. No newspapers, no new music, no television. No football games or mascots, no vending machines, no weekend trips to Philadelphia to see plays or ballets. No world except Catherine.

That's what everyone else gave up. But I didn't give up anything. I was already a ghost.

If We Were Villains from the bardolatry shelf perfectly fits onto this one.

Unfortunately I’m placing Hell Bent, the sequel to Ninth House, here. Though its got a terrifically unsettling cover and an intriguing premise, I did not enjoy it at all. I thought it was slow, repetitive and a large chunk of it was revealed to be sort of useless plot wise and I just was never emotionally invested. A true bummer.11 I’m also placing The Maidens here because it was terrible and I hated the ending because it was stupid and not well set up.