Peter O'Keefe - Human Authored Works

 
White Flight by Peter O'Keefe
Uncomfortably Dark Horror (October 2025)
Reviewed by Elizabeth Broadbent

Cemetery Dance Online

Everyone loves a good haunted house story. Make it short and quick, throw in some serious tension, stir in a few vivid characters, add a dose of disorientation — you've probably got a hit. Peter O'Keefe does this one better in White Flight, out October 21 from Uncomfortably Dark. His fast-paced, nail-biting little gothic novella delivers something unexpected: a seriously squirm-worthy look at American racism.

Willow and Joel Ward are in the process of moving out. Since their teenage daughter D passed away, their house — always rife with unsettling occurrences — has ramped up its paranormal activity. Located in what realtors would call "an up and coming neighborhood," the house was once owned by a Black family, but weathered abandonment, squatters, and worse before they picked it up for a song. After the tragedy the Wards have endured, they're deadset on getting out. 

In the best way, this is a withholding little novella — imagine a cat you're desperate to lure into your lap. The less you know, the better, but here's the hook: Willow and Joel are white. They adopted D as an infant. She was Black. The book takes place against a backdrop of town-wide racial tension. 

This book hurts. 

Very few white authors bother to examine America's brutal racial fissure; it's painful as well as hard to do without degenerating into didactism. But works that manage an honest look at white privilege inevitably arrive at a singular conclusion: Many white people don't bother to try, and even those who attempt to reconcile racial schisms inevitably fail. Regardless of intention, their failures become cringe-worthy, catastrophic blunders which perpetuate systemic violence. Moreover, that violence damages both those who enact it and the minorities they hurt. 

O'Keefe nails that sentiment in this fast-paced novella, which takes place over only a few hours. Through flashbacks, he examines the motivations, compromises, and wincingly awful rationalizations a white couple makes when they decide they're fit to raise a Black child. The Wards try; that trying only perpetuates violence. 

However, spotlighting the unflinching social commentary in White Flight risks obscuring the very real heart of this novel. Amid its lingering questions about racism, the novella is simply a great haunted house story — tense, wickedly paced, and intricately plotted. Pay attention; the book's brutal climax is well-seeded. 

Best of all, O'Keefe never hands out easy answers — for the racism or the plot points. The worst horrors remain unknowable and beyond our grasp. White Flight is a bundle of raw nerves, and its main characters may be radically unlikeable, but we keep reading because they're understandable. They're familiar. After the madness O'Keefe sets up, their conclusion feels not only apt, but inevitable. 

White Flight is a fast read that gives a necessary perspective on our current political moment. A tense, hair-raising read, it shines with gorgeous prose that only emphasizes urgency of its message. A much-needed story, and well-told. 

What others are saying about Bishop Rider Lives:

Catherine MacLeod
5.0 out of 5 stars Stories of Terrible Hope
Reviewed in Canada on July 5, 2024

Verified Purchase

All the stories in "Bishop Rider Lives" tell the truth. Some of them hit a little too hard, but in Bishop Rider's world too hard is just right.

So is Rob Hart's "Bless This Mess," the story of a woman with deep and hard-won insight.

Peter O'Keefe's "By Their Works You Will Know Them" is a truly twisted whodunnit. You're not sure who's doing what to whom or why. But be assured justice will be served--and it will be delicious.

If you think it's impossible to feel horror and joy at the same time, Laurel Hightower's "Sanctity" will prove you wrong.

In the amazingly dark "Feed the Machine" Nick Kolakowski just says what we're all thinking.

It's said that the first thing a writer needs to learn is to not look away from the truth. The fifteen writers in "Bishop Rider Lives" have not only learned that lesson but are willing to pass it on.

A Brief Peculiar History of Detroit is a collection of photo essays and texts created by artists and writers who have journeyed beyond Detroit's fading edifices of commerce and industry to become the archeologists of a lost city and its people. Their reports from the scattered sites of their excavations reveal compact, shimmering facets of countless lives lived--well and not so well--by the people who have called this city home. The artifacts recovered are the images, the stories, and the memories contained in these pages. 

It's time to put some of the people who built this city back into the picture.

My short stories have appeared in various literary and online journals, including The Wayne Literary Review, Thoughtful Dog, Little Patuxent Review, and Moss Piglet. My full-length play "The Algiers Motel" received staged readings at the Stage Left Ensemble Theatre and Chicago Dramatists, among others. My short play "Brotherhood of Man" was a finalist for the Humana Theatre Festival's Heideman Award.

Script writer for the syndicated anthology program "Tales From the Darkside." Completed feature writing assignments for a variety of Hollywood companies, including Imagine Entertainment/Universal Studios, Full Moon Studios, and Fries Entertainment. Optioned original feature length screenplays to numerous producers and independent filmmakers, including Bill Tietler (Mr. Holland's Opus, Jumanji), Lyndon Chubbuck (The War Bride) and Al Ruddy (The Godfather, Walker Texas Ranger, Hogan's Heroes).

Worked with various German producers, including Hamburg Film Studios and the RTL Network, to develop movies for the German market."Die Sexfalle" ("The Sex Trap"), a movie-of-the-week conceived and written for German television, was one of the highest rated productions of the 1997 German television season.