Dying Towns in Literature.
By Authors:
- Stephen King is fond of setting his books in Dying Towns.
- Carrie: Although Chamberlain, Maine is described as a virtual ghost town in the novel, it is more on its way to becoming one (thus fitting the trope), as there are still some locals who have remained. However, with Thomas Ewen High School in ruins, nearly the entire junior and senior class dead (after having been killed in a huge fire Carrie sets on prom night) and hundreds more dead or feared dead following Carrie's rampage, the town is shell-shocked and goes into a catatonic state of mourning. In the aftermath, the town's industrial base is ruined (either having closed due to lack of work or the entire workforce quitting/leaving town) and people are moving out of town ... multiple ones on a daily basis. The thriving small town of Chamberlain virtually changes into a dying town within weeks, well on its way to a Ghost Town.
- 'Salem's Lot features a town that's already like this... and then the process is accelerated to Ghost Town levels by a Vampire invasion.
- Oatley, New York, in The Talisman.
- Arnette, Texas, where The Stand opens, is one of these even before Captain Trips hits.
- Derry, Maine, at the end of IT is implied to be heading this way, but Insomnia (set in Derry a few years later) shows it to be bouncing back.
- Even Castle Rock, Maine, is thought to be this by one of the characters in "It Grows on You," following the cataclysmic events of Needful Things.
By Titles:
- Grantville in 1632, is a small mining town in West Virginia, slowly being hollowed out by mine closures. Then it's teleported into the Thirty Years' War and becomes one of the most important centers of technology and learning in the world. In the early novels, the older residents mention that they'd once resigned themselves to watching the town die as all the young people left for greener pastures. Now their main problem is that too many people want to move in too quickly.
- All the Wrong Questions takes place in one of these, called Stain'd-by-the-Sea. It used to be a prosperous town thanks to ink harvesting industry, but eventually the number of ink-creating octopi started dwindling, so the biggest company in town, Ink Inc., drained the surrounding oceans to get at the remaining ones. This made things worse, as it killed of the rest of the octopi, and screwed up a lot of other businesses that relied on tourism. By the time the series starts, almost everyone has left to find better opportunities in the city.
- American Gods: Shadow finds a lot of these on his road trip (some of them, such as Cairo
, are Truth in Television). He settles down for a time in one town that seems to be surprisingly immune to the economic ebb. He should have paid a bit more attention to that... - The novel Casas Muertas by Venezuelan author Miguel Otero Silva, is set in a town which is half this, half Ghost Town, and strongly transitions to the latter during the story. The sequel, Oficina Nº 1, is set in the Boom Town where the protagonist moves after realizing that nothing can save her little town from dying.
- Daughters of Darkness (1996): Briar Creek was established as a gold rush town back in the 19th century, but after the gold dried up it's slowly been on the decline, with most residents not having much money and the buildings falling into disrepair. It's mentioned that "the wilderness is taking it back" and a lot of young people move out as soon as they can, because there are few opportunities and not a whole lot to do. Both Mark and Mary-Lynette find Briar Creek pretty dull. In contrast, the Redfern sisters – especially Jade – find it exciting, because they rarely got to leave the enclave where they were raised and they're free to do almost anything they want here, plus it's so small and out-of-the-way they're unlikely to run into any Night People who would turn them in.
- Dear America: In Christmas After All, Willie Faye's hometown of Heart's Bend, Texas became this due both to the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl hitting it hard. It came to a head when the train started speeding by the station instead of stopping by. It was also a very small area before that, which results in Willie Faye getting Culture Shock when she's sent to live with protagonist Minnie and her family in Cincinnati.
- Discworld:
- Mrs Bradshaw's Handbook to the Ankh-Morpork and Sto Plains Railway mentions the town of Gravelhang, which was once the centre of the marble industry until the building of the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork used up all the marble. It now comprises a population of 45 and one shop that sells canned food, tobacco, and banjo strings.
- The Compleat Discworld Atlas describes Chirm as having once been famed for oysters, but since the oyster beds have dried up, the remaining inhabitants survive by collecting driftwood.
- Exactly what changed Zemphis from the bustling market town seen in Equal Rites to the lawless Vice City described in Raising Steam and Mrs Bradshaw's Handbook isn't clear. The Atlas mentions the difference but not what caused it. It seems like all the trade routes are still in place but the city's own attitude to them has shifted.
- Branton Hills in Gadsby starts off stagnating, but it improves thanks to the title character.
- I Am Not a Serial Killer: Clayton is a town where infection set in recently, but it's declining fast. John compares it to roadkill, a town rotting by the side of the road. By I Don't Want to Kill You, it's begun to border on the Wretched Hive variant, with dirty secrets popping up everywhere. The Film of the Book milks this for all its worth, atmosphere-wise, resulting in a muted, arthouse gothic feel.
- In If I Fall, If I Die, Will's hometown of Thunder Bay, Ontario is suffering this fate due to the decline in the grain trade.
MacVicar: It's different than it was in your mother's day. At that time, things made sense here. We put the bad guys in jail and sent the good guys to work. But once the grain stopped coming on those rails and went east to China, things took a turn. Now we've got the highest crime rate on the Lakes, outside Chicago. The only grain people're interested in is the fermented kind. The pourable version. The kind that helps you forget the better times and hunker down into the new.
- Jean Shepherd gave this feeling to Hammond, Indiana in his collection of short stories, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash.
- Livvie Owen Lived Here: When Nabor's paper mill shut down a decade ago, most other businesses did too. Simon used to work at the mill, but after he lost his job and a House Fire damaged the family home, the Owens were forced to move out.
- The Locked Tomb: Gideon the Ninth: The Ninth House has been reduced to an increasingly small number of increasing ancient retainers, worshipers, and necromancers. Its population below the age of sixty appears to consist of one morose cavalier, two teenagers, and no one else. This is partially the result of its rulers sacrificing an entire generation of babies to ensure their child was born an overwhelmingly powerful necromancer. It's not entirely clear what happened to everyone else, although the house was already dying before they resorted to this. According to Silas Octakiseron (who, it should be noted, is an asshole), the House was never supposed to exist in the first place and therefore has been dying out for ten thousand years.
- The Lost Fleet series details a number of solar systems that had once been host to heavy traffic but have been bypassed by the time the titular fleet passes through because the Portal Network rendered the old mode of system-to-system hyperspace travel obsolete. Some of these systems have been completely abandoned, while others still have dwindling populations as more and more of the younger generation emigrate, or are conscripted. On at least one occasion, a Company Town that existed solely to service a now-disused waystation in a particularly bleak system is only clinging to life because the corporation didn't bother sending anyone to take the workers off-world after they were laid off. On another occasion, the titular Lost Fleet passes through a system whose main habitable world was once famed for its natural beauty and home to numerous luxury resorts, but a hundred years of constant war haven't been good for the tourist trade.
- Meg Langslow Mysteries: Clay County, by "The Hen of the Baskervilles." The killer's Motive Rant claims that the county is "dying by inches" due to their economy drying up and prominent citizens repeatedly being arrested for murder. By the end of the book, the entire sheriff's department is about to be laid off except for the sheriff and three deputies who are related to the mayor or the sheriff. And they're only being paid to work part-time.
- Mermaids of Eriana Kwai: The island nation Eriana Kwai's economy used to be based on tourism and fish. But ever since the merman king Adaro began his war against the island, both activities have become unsafe because mermaids have been known to snatch people from boats or beaches. Now almost every business on the island has closed except for the grocery store, where the shelves are often bare. Islanders survive by hunting, although game has been so overhunted that there's not much left, and by accepting aid from the U.S. and Canada.
- Much Ado About Grubstake: Grubstake, Colorado was once a prominent mining community before the gold and silver began to run low. The town's current population is sixty-two (mostly prospectors who lack the resources to move and still manage to extract just enough gold dust to pay some of their bills), and only one train passes by every month. So when a mysterious man shows up trying to buy mines as a supposed resort attraction, sixteen-year-old boarding house owner Arley, the orphaned daughter of a miner, smells a rat.
- Cullerne, the setting of The Nebuly Coat by John Meade Falkner, is a harbour that lost its purpose when the river silted up.
- Coalwood, West Virginia is the local setting for October Sky (originally named Rocket Boys), a real-life story about Homer Hadley Hickam Jr. and his dreams of becoming an engineer for NASA. (Today, McDowell County, of which Coalwood is the seat, has the highest rate of drug overdoses in the United States, mostly due to opioids.)
- The last chapters of One Hundred Years of Solitude presents Macondo as one of those after the banana boom ended tragically. It never becomes a full Ghost Town because a natural disaster hits hard at the end of the novel, completely destroying what little is left.
- In other books by Gabriel García Márquez which share the Macondo setting, the town is usually in this stage.
- Pale: The fictional tourist town of Kennet, Ontario, on the shores of Lake Superior, is only barely hanging on thanks to the yearly tourist season, with all other jobs having dried up. The Anthropomorphic Personification of the town, a spirit named Ken, exhibits hopelessness at every turn, and also reflects the town's alcohol and drug problems. All Ken has left is a dimming sense of pride.
- Regarding The...: Dry Creek is one of these in the first book. It used to be a popular tourist destination thanks to its natural springs and creeks, but those dried up thirty years ago; now, the town has to pay Sally Mander and "Dee" Eel for a place to swim and drinking water, and most businesses have closed up or moved to the still-thriving Springfield. Ultimately, Mander and Eel are revealed to have been the ones who capped off the geyser feeding Dry Creek in the first place; when they're arrested for this, the geyser is let loose and the town (renamed Geyser Creek) is able to thrive again.
- Innsmouth in The Shadow Over Innsmouth looks like one of such towns. It's actually a Town with a Dark Secret.
- Sunny and Maxon from Shine Shine Shine grew up in Yates County, Pennsylvania, where oil was discovered in 1859. When the oil ran out, the wealthy inhabitants sold coal, then lumber. The money finally ran out for good in 1952, leaving a decaying town with unusually large houses.
- Stinger: Inferno, Texas is a mining town with no minerals left. The school just got shut down and everyone is in bad financial shape besides Cade, whose prosperity comes from organized crime.
- Rust Belt suburb Grosse Point, Michigan in The Virgin Suicides. Its Apathetic Citizens are in denial about it until it's too late, and its teenagers just want to get out as fast as possible.
- The Word and the Void: Hopewell, Illinois is a dying steel mill town peopled by the old, the broken, and those too young to leave yet. Several demonic invasions later it's still standing, but not by much. It says a lot about the setting that the demons and the feeders aren't the most depressing things about it.
