Windham writer turns family history and Portland’s past into gothic horror novella

By Masha Yurkevich

After more than 20 years of living in Windham, Joe McNerney has turned a lifelong love of writing family stories and Maine history into his first published book.

Joe McNerney of Windham has written
a gothic horror novella called 'The Dark
Keeps Records' based upon his family
history and of Portland's past. McNerney
is a former freelance writer for The
Windham Eagle newspaper.
COURTESY PHOTO  

“The Dark Keeps Records” is a historical gothic horror novella set in Portland during the winter of 1942. The story follows Aurelia Vautrin, a young woman who leaves New Orleans to work at an elderly home in Portland, where she begins to notice unsettling occurrences, including residents who mysteriously disappear.

For McNerney, the book is the result of years of writing and an interest in history that began long before he became a published author.

McNerney has lived in Maine his entire life. Before moving to Windham, he grew up in Limington, another small, rural community surrounded by trees and woods. That upbringing influenced the way he viewed larger cities and communities.

“Whenever I would come anywhere beyond Windham to Portland or any place else, it felt like Boston to me,” McNerney said. “Everything was just very gigantic.”

Growing up in smaller communities made places like Windham feel more comfortable to him.

“When I started to branch out into living and exploring bigger areas, the idea of someplace like Windham or Limington or a smaller area felt more comforting to me,” he said.

McNerney has been writing short stories since middle school, but for years struggled to turn his ideas into a complete book.

“I have been steadily writing many short stories and similar things since middle school,” he said. “I just never was able to really put those things together in a way that I felt like made a cohesive story.”

The inspiration for “The Dark Keeps Records” came from several places, including his experience helping rebuild New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and stories told to him by his grandparents. Both of his grandparents were born in the 1920s and grew up in Portland, making the 1940s a formative period in their lives. After they passed away, McNerney found himself drawn back to the stories they had shared about their younger years.

“It was comforting to reconnect with the youth of my grandparents,” he said.

That connection helped lead him toward a story set in Portland in 1942.

In the book, Aurelia begins noticing that something is not right at the elderly home. People begin disappearing, while the residents cannot seem to remember what happened. Aurelia starts keeping her own records as she tries to understand what is happening without losing herself. Although the book is a horror story, McNerney said it is not focused on gore. Instead, the horror comes from the feeling that something is wrong even when it cannot immediately be seen or explained.

“I like the feeling of reading a book and not having a monster come out, but a supernatural kind of feeling that something is off,” he said.

McNerney spent nearly a year researching Portland and Maine during the early 1940s. He visited the Portland Public Library and looked for maps, articles and firsthand accounts to better understand how people actually lived during the period. The book incorporates real elements of the time, including blackout drills and sugar rationing. The story is primarily set on Stevens Avenue in Portland, and McNerney worked to keep the historical details close to what was happening in the city and state.

McNerney began putting the book together in December 2025 after writing shorter stories about some of the characters. The title The Dark Keeps Records serves as the central idea behind the story. McNerney said people often try to hide difficult things by ‘sweeping them under the rug’ or putting them away, without realizing those things continue to exist.

“My thought was, what if the dark itself kept records of these things that we tried to hide?” he said. “The Dark Keeps Records” is currently available on Amazon. McNerney is also working to get the book into local bookstores.

Although this is his first published book, McNerney is already working on another historical fiction story. For McNerney, publishing his first book is not the end of his writing journey, but the beginning of a new chapter – one that brings together his love of history, family memories and the unsettling unknown. <