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Women in Horror Month: Book Review: Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn

cover art for Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn

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Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn

Omnium Gatherum 2020

ISBN: 9781949054279

Available: Paperback, Kindle

 

Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women is an anthology of stories by Southeast Asian women writers of horror. No one questions that the dangers cultures try to warn against in their ancient stories exist, but should we take the stories themselves as fact or fiction? The “unquiet” Southeast Asian mothers, daughters, wives, and girlfriends in Black Cranes ask this very question as they experience the the disturbing intrusion of these supernatural stories into their modern lives. Many of these characters think that by leaving home or separating themselves from their cultural roots, they can learn to forget, discount or even reject the stories they have grown up with about ghosts, terrifying beasts, bloodthirsty demons, deadly tricksters, and zombies only to find out that is impossible.

 

Several of the stories in this collection are built around characters from Asian myths and legends. The kapre, a tree demon, protects an infant and loves her for life, as kapres do, in “A Love Story” by Rin Chupeco. In Gabriela Lee’s “Rites of Passage,” no matter how an unmarried pregnant girl from Manila tries to escape, the demon child or tiyanak that she has killed will eventually make her pay. Nadia Bulkin asserts that “Truth Is Order and Order Is Truth” in her tale of a conquering Demon Queen who retakes her kingdom from the “fish people,” while the wily fox spirit of Rena Mason’s “Ninth Tale” masquerading as a beautiful woman vies for a tricky bride-to-be’s young man. There is also a daughter who is shocked into believing in a kwee-kia, a dead or miscarried child brought to life again, by catching her mother breastfeeding her own in “Little Worm” by Geneve Flynn. There is even a take on what started as a 1970’s Japanese urban legend involving the kuchisake-onna, or “slit-mouthed woman” in “A Pet Is for Life,” also by Geneve Flynn.

 

A few of these tales read like modern updates of older stories. Their focus is the clash of cultures within an individual’s psyche. Grace Chan’s “Of Hunger and Fury” explores the separation between a daughter and the mother who sent her into a foreign world for a better life. Chan’s poetic descriptions and strong sense of place enhance this tale of the superstition and deeply held beliefs that hold the old generation captive and threaten to erase those in the new who dare to ignore their roots or move beyond the past. The resulting sense of loss is revealed from the mother’s perspective in “Frangipani Wishes” by Lee Murray, in which the mother destroys her own life to forge a future for her daughter. In “Phoenix Claws”, also by Lee Murray, a young woman’s boyfriend is culture tested when he is offered chicken feet at a family meal. When she covers for him by eating the feet herself, she is given a supernatural punishment.

 

The remaining science fiction stories suggest what could happen when culture, relationships, and conflict reach the mythological future. Elaine Cukegkeng predicts the next iteration of overbearing mothers as those who can genetically alter their daughters. A “cosmetech” surgeon can upgrade his wife’s appearance in “Skin Dowdy” by Angela Yuriko Smith, but will she or he ever be satisfied? In Smith’s “Vanilla Rice,” a daughter threatens to undo her mother’s work by removing her physical trait chip. Finally, in “Fury” by Christina Sng, we find out what new horrors  a pandemic will unleash and ask ourselves why the husband in “The Mark” by Grace Chan has a zipper on his chest.

 

There are so many ways into this horror collection: mythology, science fiction, legend, women’s issues, and cultural issues. Readers will appreciate the variety and be drawn in by the storytelling that leads us to believe that the horrors of the past are real, have not died, and are waiting to be reborn in the present. Recommended.

Contains: violence and sexual situations

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Posted on February 3, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Book Review: Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power

cover art for Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power by Sady Doyle

(  Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com  )

Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power by Sady Doyle

Melville House Publishing, 2019

ISBN-13 : 978-1612197920

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

Sady Doyle has written a witty, chatty, insightful, and angry book on female monstrosity. Her premise is that women who claim ownership over their voices and bodies are constructed as monsters because they violate the social and biological norms that threaten men’s control over them- they are a threat to the patriarchy. Doyle identifies three key roles women fill in our patriarchal society and divides the book into sections on “daughters”, “wives”, and “mothers”. She has a lot to say about mothers: that section gets twice the number of pages as the other two sections combined.

Doyle has combed through pop culture, history, literature, fairy tales, myths, horror, true crime, sociology, and personal anecdotes to find examples and support for her theories, and when she does a deep dive into a topic (as she did on a number of girls and women, including Annelise Michel, Bridget Cleary, and Augusta Gein), or a critique of The Conjuring, it is fascinating and memorable. However, Doyle jumps around a lot, and it isn’t always clear how things are related.  Her writing flows well, and she does a nice job making it relevant and tying it to recent events.

If you’re looking for an enjoyable feminist take on monstrous women, you’ve found it.

The book includes an annotated list of works cited, endnotes, and an index.

 

Recommended.

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sady Doyle’s premise is that female monstrosity is determined by patriarchy, which she describes as a social, cultural, and moral structure that is founded in men’s absolute power and control over at least one woman, generally through instilling fear in them.  Doyle contends that women who claim ownership over their voices and bodies are constructed as monsters because they violate social and biological norms that threaten men’s control over them. She identifies three key roles women fill in our patriarchal society, and devotes a section of her book to “daughters”, one to “wives”, and one to “mothers”. She chooses from a variety of literary, legendary, historical, and pop culture examples and stories to discuss female monsters, both fictional and real, that exist outside society (or are ostracized by society), and the female victims of monsters that the patriarchy requires.

Posted on February 1, 2021 by , Reply

WiHM: Gearing Up For Women in Horror Month? Take This Quiz!

Women in Horror Month starts tomorrow, and I thought I’d kick it off a day early to give you all the opportunity to try this quiz I made of books by women writers of horror published during this century. I looked at a lot of lists online, and as far as we’ve gone, it seems like there’s still a ways to go, particularly when we’re talking about horror for adults (the reverse is true with YA horror- it is almost completely authored by women). We need to be seeing new names on these lists, not just Mary Shelley and Shirley Jackson (as influential and talented as they are).

This is not an exhaustive list.  I couldn’t include everyone I would have liked, and some of these writers are prolific- I tried to include just one title for each author, which might not necessarily be their most well-known book. I did like seeing that there seems to be a fair amount of diversity, or at least more than there was. All of these were written since 2000, and most in the past ten years. The closer we get to the present, the more women writers of all kinds there seem to be!  At the same time, don’t be surprised if you have read fewer of these authors and books than you realize. Think of this as a jumping off point if you haven’t chosen a book yet to read for WiHM.

I’d love to see more suggestions! This is a great month to share your favorites, so tell me all about yours!

 

Posted on January 31, 2021 by , Reply
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