Abstract
This essay examines Rohan O’Grady’s novel Let’s Kill Uncle (1963), which parodies the figure of the naughty child by comedically extending “bad” behavior into homicidal terrain. As I illustrate, Let’s Kill Uncle proffers constructions of two children—Barnaby and Christie—who darkly and comedically burlesque the familiar categories of Romantic innocents, bad seeds, monsters, and mischievous Victorian/Edwardian adolescents. Yet, as the essay demonstrates through an examination of black comedy, gothic tropes, and pop cultural contexts, O’Grady’s beastly youngsters are simultaneously more disturbing and more pleasurable than their literary and filmic precursors, since the preteens are able to perform their innate cruelty and trounce the novel’s most powerful grown-ups, ultimately without punishment or responsibility for their most malicious deeds.
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Acknowledgements
Enormous thanks to Sandra Kroupa and Wesley Nelson for digging up books from the UW Library Historical Collections vault. Additional heartfelt thanks to Monica Flegel and Christopher Parkes for their exceptional feedback.
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Brown, R.A. (2018). Murderous Misfits and Misguided Mentors in Rohan O’Grady’s Let’s Kill Uncle. In: Flegel, M., Parkes, C. (eds) Cruel Children in Popular Texts and Cultures. Critical Approaches to Children's Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72275-7_7
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