Each Friday in October around 5pm eastern, Nia will post a thread on Library Journal's Twitter to start the larger discussion on the topic. To supplement the discussion, I have prepared some more reading lists and background information to help you put it into a broader context and help your library patrons.
You can engage with the conversation anytime using the #LJReads and #LovecraftFridays hashtags. Pass it on to your patrons and encourage them to participate too.
We also have a live, free, wrap up program planned for 10/30, the final Friday and you can sign up now. by clicking here or on the graphic.
Now it is time for the discussion and this week's topic-- Winthrop's Ghosts.
Today's discussion is focused on episode three “Holy Ghosts” where Letitia is looking into Hiram Winthrop, the original owner of the Winthrop house she has just acquired. As Nia will explain, Winthrop kidnapped black people to do experiments on them, experiments that ended in their deaths. The house is still haunted by those souls and the evil Winthrop.
This episode alludes to the fact that the full horror of this house is tied to its supernatural haunting AND the American history of performing medical experimenting on black people. In the #LJReads Twitter thread, Nia will suggest some books on that topic.
In the episode, Leti tries to excise the house of the ghosts, both those of the victims trying to warn her away and of the "devil" Winthrop. This made me think about how the haunted house and demon possession tropes have both evolved over the last few years, especially those by marginalized people
Looking at some of the best titles that appear in that intersection of the two tropes I notices that the very best play off racism and marginalization just as much as they explore the intersection of the haunted house and possession stories. Here are a few examples worth your time. Click on the titles to read more about each book:
- The Good House by Tananarive Due is a great readalike for those who are intrigued this conversation. It is a tale of possession and voodoo gone wrong, featuring Black characters navigating racism and a serious haunted house problem.
- Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones is a terrifying story of a haunted house and a young man who is haunted by the ghosts of his family and his heritage [Native American]. The psychological horror is juxtaposed by the literal horror of their lives. And that ending! I think it is the perfect exploration of how supernatural evil and real life horrors can combine. This book punches the reader in the gut.
- Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is so multi faceted and compulsively readable, but in terms of today's conversation, this book is literally about a house that is possessed and the family in control of its powers who are eugenicists and have spent lifetimes building power off of the blood of marginalized people. You really cannot get more on the nose. Also, this title plays with the very white history of "classic" horror and gives it an unapologetically Mexican slant, improving the entire genre along the way.
- Hoodoo by Ronald Smith is a middle grade title. It explores both supernatural demons and the historical horror of being being black in the Deep South of the Great Depression era. You can read more about this title in the 2020 Summer Scares Programming Guide.
Nia also brings up the connections in this episode to Frankenstein and its author, Mary Shelly, like Leti, a woman ahead of her time. You can learn more about Shelly and Frankenstein, a book written by a teenager that literally created both the science fiction and horror genres with this book. [Click here for my full review, but you need to scroll past the Joe Hill review].
Two of my favorite modern retellings of Frankenstein explore the trope of the unsettled ghosts through a racial and ethnic lens, directly confronting the themes of the real violence that comes from otherness. I shared them with Nia for the discussion: Victor LaValle's Destroyer and Frankenstein Baghdad [on the list of Becky's personal all time favorite horror titles]. Click on the titles for my my longer reviews. Nia also linked to them.
One of the major reasons horror is so popular today is because people who have been “othered” by society are grabbing on to it as the frame to articulate the horror of their real lives. Marginalized people find the genre to be the perfect vehicle to tell their story. This is what we mean when we talk about the "True" Horrors of Lovecraft Country.
I want to end with a quote that sums this larger theme up, and it comes from John Fram, debut author of The Bright Lands [my LJ review at this link]. This is from the full quote he contributed to my 2020 Horror Genre Preview for Library Journal:"When I began work on "The Bright Lands," I only knew two things about the story: that it would feature a queer hero returning to a hometown that terrified him, and that he would learn things there were even worse than he could ever imagined. I didn't even realize I was writing a horror novel until a monster started whispering in people's dreams and a strange pit loomed at the limits of everyone's perception, but the moment I understood what I had on my hands, I ran with it. Horror has been producing some of the most mind-bending, diverse stories of the last five years, a trend I don't see stopping anytime soon. We live in a gaslit era, a time when straight, white society is finally being visited by the fears and uncertainties that the rest of us have been battling all our lives. Horror seems ready to tell us that yes, things really are more terrifying than you could have imagined...What a time to be alive."Please visit the #LJReads #LovecraftFridays threads and add your voice to our discussion. And before you leave this post, get yourself signed up for our live discussion on 10/30.
No comments:
Post a Comment