If you don’t read Horror, you should still consider reading this, especially if you enjoy unflinching literature with deep connections to sociology anIf you don’t read Horror, you should still consider reading this, especially if you enjoy unflinching literature with deep connections to sociology and humanism. In fact, if you are just looking for a good Horror novel, you should probably read something else.
What I seek in Horror is not gore or jump scares or mindless brutality. While I do rather enjoy a good supernature-versus-man conflict, I really appreciate when an author uses elements of Horror to do what I really love in literature, which is to peel back the layers of the human condition in a way that can only be amplified by speculative fiction.
This book does this to perfection.
The story immediately brings you to into the scene of the Deep South of 1950, smell, sight and sound: someone wakes up to the smell of frying ham and an empty chicken coop, the characters walk down dusty roads for miles to anywhere, the main character’s nose, at one point, “tickled with a trace of talcum powder or Madam C.J. Walker’s Glossine hair grease.”
It also seamlessly weaves in black experience in The South of 1950: someone “smiles like it’s Christmas” when they greet a white neighbor, men are arrested for vagrancy for walking down the street on a weekday, and our hero Robert Stephens, Jr is told that a good, strong boy like him doesn’t need his schoolbooks. It’s a world in which traps are everywhere, injustice is assumed, and even being seen, much less heard, can bring violence to oneself and one’s family and friends in less time than it takes to blink the dust of those long roads back to home from your eyes.
So many times, I remembered the beginning of Ta Nehisi Coates’s Between The World and Me, in which he discusses an existence with the constant uncertainty and threat of potential violence and injustice due to his appearance as feeling as if he is constantly under threat of “los[ing his] body.” This is a whole novel filled with this feeling, which is why there are so many ghosts.
And there are ghosts. (view spoiler)[ And this is a bit of spoiler, because I enjoyed discovering this on my own: this book is filled with ghosts, but it’s the people rather than the ghosts who commit the horrors.
And then, what if human oppressors found a way to torment and oppress the oppressed, even after death?
Definitely one of my favorite reads this year, and one that will haunt me forever. Pun intended.
Oh, oh, oh, and that ending…I won’t judge you if you cheat and skip ahead to know what to expect. I certainly did. (hide spoiler)](hide spoiler)]...more
In brief: this novel is powerful and devastating, right from the beginning.
It’s always fascinating to see how short story writers acclimate to longer In brief: this novel is powerful and devastating, right from the beginning.
It’s always fascinating to see how short story writers acclimate to longer novel form. I very much enjoyed the powerful stories in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s collection Friday Black, and so I was looking forward to his debut novel. In this case, chapters have the intensity of short stories. This strategy might feel disjointed or superficial in the hands of another writer, but, at any length, Adjei-Brenyah is a master of the written word.
Nevertheless, the intensity of the chapters, combined with the weighty subject matter, meant that I chose to read this novel in small doses.
While set in a future of indeterminate nearness, there is too much here that feels plausible. Besides the Gladiatorial shows themselves and the absurd marketing and reality television that surrounds them, there’s surgically implanted shackles that glow their status in restraint and silence and a device called an Influencer that can wreak unendurable pain.
And so often, the author has a helpful footnote to remind us that there is plenty of truth in his fiction: Privately owned prisons? They already exist. Soldier Police? They already use more-than-reciprocal force throughout the United States. Lethal tasering? Probably more common than you think.
Since my copy is an advance reader copy, it contains a short letter from the author about the inspiration for the novel coming from the fact that his father was a defense attorney. While his father’s focus was usually immigration law, he sometimes defended “people who had done actual harm.” When son interrogated father about the innocence of such individuals, his father replied, “...it’s not that simple.” I hope the final version includes this letter, or something like it in the form of introduction. It certainly helped set the perspective for me for the narrative that follows.
Casualties in the book are followed by a listing of their full birth name and a brief blurb about the human that breathed while inhabiting that name. This reminds me of a song that never fails to wreck me.
As the author of this review, I am empowered to choose three words that describe this book: Masterful, Devastating, Necessary....more
Never judge a book by the cover, right? Well, I definitely avoided this book for a while, or at least felt uncomfortable and unsettled when I looked aNever judge a book by the cover, right? Well, I definitely avoided this book for a while, or at least felt uncomfortable and unsettled when I looked at the cover. “What is this even about?” I wondered, then shook my head and walked away.
But one should feel uncomfortable and unsettled, because that’s a demon on the cover. Just look at those eyes - see how that’s actually a pair of gaping mouths with teeth? That ain’t human. But one should not walk away from this.
Still, until I read this, I thought they must have been drunk when they looked at the cover and said: “yeah, that looks like a great idea! Let’s do it!”
If you know me at all (if not, hello there! Nice to meet you!), you know I find Southern Gothic awfully hard to resist, as well as dark humor, and biting, sharp, socially-conscious commentary with a healthy dose of interdimensional kick-ass thrown in…
...this novella is all of those things. Plus, here’s the premise: the release of D.W.Griffith’s Birth of a Nation was actually a potent summoning which called demons to earth, and the protagonists now need to fight those demons. Seeing the demons at all in their natural form requires a special sight, which our narrator, Maryse Boudreaux, happens to possess. She also happens to possess an enchanted sword forged from iron, song, revenge, and a mysterious magic power even she doesn’t fully comprehend. (Personally, I really love the singing sword.)
Now, I want to be clear: there is a lot of demon fighting in this. A lot. It’s probably more horror than fantasy: there’s a lot of blood and demons and mayhem and death. It also has a lot of tropes of demon-hunting/righteous mission, including a few mechanisms that seem incredibly convenient and well-timed. But it doesn’t matter, I still love this story. In fact, in my mind, Deus ex Machina can also now be referred to as the Dead Angel Oak effect. Six or half a dozen: same magnitude and direction.
But this story has a lot of heart, too, and conflicts with which even non-demon-hunting humans can relate: grief, loss of loved ones, trauma, hate; but also love, camaraderie, family, community. It’s a parable of finding power beyond dark, destructive forces- yet another trope: the power of love over hate.
Plus, did I mention kick-ass demon fighting?
I am not usually fond when fiction attempts dialects, usually because it feels inexpertly done at best and horribly insulting at worst. However, here it is perfect. The way that the landscape can nearly become a character in much fiction, I feel the dialects serve this purpose here. Especially the Geechee. Our most magical character is an old woman named Nana Jean, and, thanks to P. Djèlí Clark’s careful phonetic representation, I can hear the musical speech of the Gullah woman in my mind, and hearing her is the only way to sense her potent magic.
The cover makes a whole lot of sense now. If there’s anything I learned from Maryse: don’t let it scare you. Just make the right choice, and...well, you might still need to fight some demons, but it will be worth the struggle.
If you want, here’s a short video about the Gullah. In my mind, I heard a lot of these “blue notes” while reading this....more
This book reminded me in many ways of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I had no idea Natchez, Mississippi was such an interesting place. It's This book reminded me in many ways of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I had no idea Natchez, Mississippi was such an interesting place. It's compared to New Orleans; in fact, one denizen claims it's "the little easy." It's a place that's trying to reconcile its past steeped in slavery and racism while the antebellum south is still glorified in many ways. The town seems an oxymoron made into a city replete with opulent homes.
There's also a unique culture in Natchez. There's an annual event called The Tableaux, which is organized by two garden clubs that can barely work together (the original single garden club split off into two factions several decades ago). This yearly ritual includes a drama and music show, festivities, a maypole, a pageant that crowns a king and queen (who are teenagers, chosen by the social rank of their mothers, because Natchez is ruled by its powerful women), and lots of women in hoopskirts receiving visitors in their antebellum mansions. There's a motorcycle Santa Parade in December, described as "the only police-escorted drunk-driving event in America." (p.263) There's prayer circles that are really ways to share gossip; e.g., imagine being in a prayer circle with a bunch of ladies and reciting this: "Jesus, I'd like to pray for a dear, dear friend of mine, because I'm just worried sick about her. She's been seeing a married man, and I mean every day. What if her husband finds out?" (p.35)
Oh, and there's always drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. After drinking, there's cocktails.
While I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it is highly anecdotal, and reads more like a journal than journalism, and sometimes the vast cast of characters can be dizzying. It's also strange and somewhat jarring to have the story of one of Natchez's most well-known enslaved individuals, an African prince named Ibrahima, dispersed in alternate chapters rather than together in one or two cohesive sections. I can't help but to feel that a little more editing finesse might have improved the reading experience. However, my complaints about the layout notwithstanding, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this....more
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