Home » Posts tagged "Black horror"

Book Review: The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

cover art for The Other Black Girl

 

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Atria Books, 2021

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1982160135

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook (  Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Nella is an editorial assistant at Wagner Books, and the only Black woman on the editorial staff.  Editorial assistants are poorly paid, and most of the editors have been there for years and aren’t going anywhere, so there isn’t a lot of likelihood of moving up. Most editorial assistants are young white women with a financial cushion that allows them to afford the job, and there is a lot of turnover.  Nella faces frequent microaggressions from the lily-white staff. There has been a token effort at diversity and inclusion, but most staff have tuned it out.

 

Nella is struggling with her supervising editor over the latest book of a well-known author, which includes a racist stereotype, while hoping to bring in a manuscript by a controversial Black activist. As she attempts to balance keeping her job with staying true to herself, she is pleased to discover that Wagner has hired another Black woman as editorial assistant, Hazel. At first Nella is relieved and excited to have someone to vent with, but Hazel comes across as more “genuine” and is an expert code-switcher. Soon Nella finds that Hazel is undermining her and going behind her back to take on what had previously been Nella’s assignments and roles. It’s almost like Nella is becoming invisible. Something ominous is going on. There are occasionally interruptions from other narrators, which is a little confusing, but eventually helps to create an understanding of the larger picture in which Nella’s story exists.

 

The Other Black Girl is slow to begin, but it is worth it to see the development of the office environment in which Nella and Hazel find themselves competing. Readers who don’t follow publishing news will need this background. As the story progresses, it draws the reader in, and the suspense and growing dread make it impossible to put down. It critiques the whiteness of publishing, the performativity of diversity initiatives, the necessity for code-switching, and stereotypes like the “strong black woman” in the midst of a conspiracy that couldn’t exist in another context. It is a compelling story that pulls back the curtains on the publishing world, showing that there is much more that needs to occur for real diversity and change.  Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on September 27, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Of One Blood: The Hidden Self by Pauline Hopkins, edited by Eric J. Guignard and Leslie Klinger, introduction by Nisi Shawl

cover art of Of One Blood: The Hidden Self by Pauline Hopkins

Of One Blood: The Hidden Self  (Haunted Library Horror Classics) by Pauline Hopkins, edited by Eric J. Guignard and Leslie S. Klinger, introduction by Nisi Shawl

Poisoned Pen Press, 2021

ISBN-13 : 978-1464215063

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

This new edition of Of One Blood is part of a series published by Poisoned Pen Press in partnership with the Horror Writers of America.  Author Pauline Hopkins was an African-American writer of the early 20th century,  and Nisi Shawl introduces the book, originally published in chapters as a serial in The Colored American magazine during 1902-1903, as an early speculative fiction novel combining the popular genre of “society novels” with a “lost world” narrative. revolutionary because the “lost world” is an advanced society consisting entirely of Black individuals, and promoting the thesis, novel at the time, that Africa is where the arts and technology have their origins.

Set in Boston in 1891 (my best guess based on the footnotes), Reuel Briggs is an impoverished medical student passing as white who is obsessed with the hidden forces of the supernatural and how to control them enough to reanimate the recently dead (shades of Victor Frankenstein). He is given the opportunity to put his theories into practice when the beautiful African-American singer Dianthe Lusk is killed in a car accident. While he is successful at bringing her back to life, she has lost her memory, and Reuel, his wealthy friend Aubrey, and Aubrey’s fiance Molly, set out to rebuild her into a new person. Molly becomes close friends with Dianthe, and Dianthe and Reuel fall in love and marry. To support her, he appeals to Aubrey for help in finding work. Aubrey, secretly in love with Dianthe, gets Reuel to sign on to a two year expedition to Africa to get him out of the way so he can marry Dianthe himself.

As Reuel journeys through Africa he sees its greatness, vividly described by Hopkins. The white men he is traveling with are surprised and at first dismayed to realize that African civilizations and peoples are the cradle of culture, as they have always believed that Africans were lesser than white people. Through Aubrey’s machinations, Reuel and Dianthe receive letters informing them that the other is dead, but while Reuel’s supernatural and mystical powers grow,  Dianthe feels more and more lost and traumatized, especially as she learns more about her tangled family tree.

There are many books now that deal with the intergenerational trauma, tangled family trees, and family separation caused by slavery, including Octavia Butler’s speculative novel Kindred,  Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, and Maisy Card’s These Ghosts Are Family.  In Of One Blood, we see a fantastical, awe-inspiring world, that contrasts the glories of African civilization rising again with the results of  the terrible treatment, taken for granted, of African-Americans. Dianthe in particular goes through unbelievable trauma: she is killed, re-animated, separated from everything she knows, nearly drowned, grieving a friend and a husband, and under tremendous pressure from Aubrey already, when the additional information about her family comes to light. In her case, it only takes one generation to destabilize her and poison her interactions with her environment. Shawl described this novel as science fiction, but to me it seems more to combine the “lost world”  utopian narrative Reuel experiences in Africa with the Gothic horror experienced by Dianthe.

Occasional footnotes are helpful in dating the time period of the book and understanding vocabulary and literary references. A brief but detailed biographical note about the author,  discussion questions, and a wide-ranging list of recommended further reading follow the story.

This is a good choice for readers interested in the beginnings of Afrofuturism and African-American speculative fiction and horror, Gothic horror, lost world and utopian narratives, and early 20th century African-American and women writers. In addition, Of One Blood would be a unique choice for the increasing number of book clubs focusing on anti-racist titles, which, in my experience, generally avoid genre fiction. Highly recommended.

Contains: incest

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

 

 

 

Posted on February 15, 2021 by , Reply

Documentary Review: Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, directed by Xavier Burgen, written and produced by Ashlee Blackwell and Danielle Burrows

Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, directed by Xavier Burgen, written and produced by Ashlee Blackwell and Danielle Burrows, based on the book Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films From the 1890s to the Present  by Robin R. Means Coleman

Stage 3 Productions, 2019

Not Rated

Run time: 83 minutes

ISBN-13/ASIN: Not Available

Available: Streaming on Amazon, Shudder

 

“We’ve always loved horror. It’s just that horror, unfortunately, hasn’t always loved us.”

With this opening quote by Tananarive Due, award winning author and UCLA educator (Black Horror, Afrofuturism), viewers begin an essential documentary on Black horror. The film investigates a century of horror films that marginalized, exploited, and eventually accepted and embraced them. Horror Noire is based on University of Michigan professor Robin Means Coleman’s book of the same title. Through new and archival interviews from scholars and creators, we take a horror movie journey through early classics, Blaxplotiation, the Reagan Era, the 90s, and the 2000s. Interviewees include Ashlee Blackwell, who runs the Graveyard Shift Sisters website, Tony Todd, William Crain, Rusty Cundieff, Rachel True, Tina Mabry, Ken Foree, and Jordan Peele.

The documentary starts with a discussion of Black representation in Birth of a Nation and moves into early classics and depiction of Black characters, as slaves, servants, or hapless victims in the 1940s. When the 50s came, horror films basically erased the Black presence, with the exception of Son of Ingara, in Atomic Age science-centered scripts. Change was coming when Night of the Living Dead was released. Blaxploitation provided more screen time for Black actors, but the films remained problematic. The Reagan Era presented the change from “urban to suburban” white flight settings, relegating Black characters to gangsters and villains. In the 90s and 2000s, more Black filmmakers and actors appeared more in the horror genre, with a shift from the focal point of fear to heroes on the big screen.

I recommend this for anyone interested in the sociopolitical history of the horror genre. The use of footage from various civil rights and conflicts that reached the national level interspersed throughout the film helped explain the reception and shift in attitudes about Black horror, and Black horror movies. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on February 28, 2020 by , Reply