The Hollow Places

The portal in The Hollow Places opens not in an ancient library or a haunted mansion, but in the Glory to God Museum of Natural Wonders, Curiosities, and Taxidermy. This setting is grounded in the real-world phenomenon of the American roadside museum, a unique cultural institution. In her author’s note, Kingfisher cites inspirations such as the Mothman Museum in West Virginia and North Carolina’s now-defunct Serpentarium, places known for their earnest eccentricity (340). These museums typically feature a jumble of local history and cryptid lore, a quality mirrored in the Wonder Museum’s collection of “genuine taxidermy” (2) and items that “undoubtedly have MADE IN CHINA stamped on the underside” (1). By situating the novel’s inciting incident within this specific cultural context, Kingfisher establishes a baseline of familiar, human-scale weirdness. The museum, with its armored mice and jackalopes, represents a comprehensible form of eccentricity that is ultimately comforting and safe; Kara even describes it as a “kind place” (23). This grounding in a recognizable American subculture serves to heighten the horror that follows. The alien, incomprehensible landscape of the willow world becomes far more jarring and terrifying when contrasted with the quirky, homespun oddities of Uncle Earl’s museum, transforming the story from a simple portal fantasy into a collision between the mundane and the profoundly unknowable.