The Daemon Lover

I loved this story. There certainly is some eeriness in it, whether in a weird or in a 'psychological horror' fashion or something else.

As I've said a lot of times in respect to the other tales discussed: I like it when the writer leaves room to the nature of strange things happening. My own interpretation changed continually when reading this story, from naturalist to delusional/psychological to weird.

I think Brandon nailed it when he said that Jackson took the weird (well, at least the feel of it) but doesn't make the metaphor literal. Maybe the protagonist idealized an existing (but harming) man and then got delusional, maybe she is all delusional, maybe she isn't delusional at all and Jamie exists in the way she thinks he does. For me it doesn't matter that much which is true, but exactly this vagueness gives more strength to the metaphorical: the laughter behind the closed door, and even the unfriendliness and unaffectedness of the people she meets - even if it is all or partly delusional or even supernatural - can be seen as the feeling of insecurity of women in an female-unfriendly and demanding world.

At the same time Jackson makes a wonderful portrait by using this third person 'personal point of view' (as we call it in Dutch, don't know the English term), the naturalist details (as in 'hyper realistic') and interior monologue.

For a nice bit of weird fiction crossover, I found a version of the ballad recorded by the band who did the theme song for True Detective season 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4UJlqCvikg