Tananarive Due

Due has long been one of my favorite writers, and this book may be her best yet--at the very least, it is absolutely the best historical horror novel I've ever read. With haunting attention to every detail, and equal parts emotional impact and horror, this story is one that will stay with me for ages to come. Due's characters are more alive than ever--which is saying quite a bit--and even the smallest of them gets such attention as to be either heart-rending or terrifying.

I'd absolutely recommend this to any horror reader, as well as readers interested in historical fiction (haunting or otherwise) that deals with race and/or the mid-twentieth-century South.… (lisätietoja)

Okay, so, let's get this out of the way right up front, okay?

This isn't really much of a horror novel. But this is a horrifying novel.

So, while I find it in the HORROR section of my local bookstore, which is fair, because there's ghosts in it, there's no real horror to be found in the ghosts. Sure, they're a bit creepy, but Due keeps the creep factor tamped WAY down.

They appear. People are shocked. We move past it.

The main thrust of the novel is the utterly horrifying, inhumane, and frankly barbaric treatment of anyone who wasn't white in America 70ish years ago. That's captured in the story of Robert Stephens Jr, sent to the titular reformatory for boys at the age of 12.

It's a sad, and sadly familiar tale that we've seen over and over, but Due does a good job of not-so-gently rubbing our noses in it, as should happen. So, from that aspect, the horror of what we do to each other is perfectly and horribly illustrated. There is a particularly brutal scene involving Robert on the evening of his first day that will stick with me for a long time.

If I have any complaint with the novel, it's that the ending was long in coming, and then felt somewhat rushed and undercooked when it came. It got the job done, but I was expecting maybe a little less chase scene action and a little more revelation, but that's just me.

So, come for the story and the heartbreaking writing. But don't expect a horror novel. Do expect a horrifying one.… (lisätietoja)

I had heard of Tananarive Due but had never read anything by her before coming across this collection of short stories on Early Reviewers, so I requested it, though I was slightly reluctant to try horror short stories. I'm always hesitant about horror (personally too squeamish for most) and short stories are very hit-or-miss for me. But I'm glad I requested this one, and I'll be glad to try more by Due in the future.

As with any short story collection, some worked better for me than others, but none were duds. The collection is divided into four parts, but only one (The Nayima Stories) features the same central character and another (The Gracetown Stories) uses a community as a backdrop, though only two stories are actually set there. All have horror and/or dystopian elements, but while all share at least a creeping sense of unease or impending threat, there is none of the gratuitous or detailed description of violence and violation that often puts me off horror.

That's not to say characters aren't in danger or dangerous to others--the stories never end wholly well for anyone, as might be expected--but the violence has a purpose, and the viewpoint rarely lingers there. Often though not always, the horror is linked with racism and other forms of oppression, but again, this feels necessary to the stories that Due is telling, rather than a cheap shorthand for "real horror" that I've encountered elsewhere. While I can't say I "enjoyed" all the stories, I was fully engaged while reading them and will likely remember some of them for a long time. I'd definitely recommend this collection of short stories to anyone interested in post-apocalyptic or horror-tinged stories and, more broadly, reading more Black American perspectives in genre fiction.… (lisätietoja)

Possible Triggers: Racial Violence
It's a mix of horror, and historical fiction, that tells a story of inequality, ghosts, abuse, and the power of love between siblings. It also explores racism that exited in Florida; actually, in a lot of the south. in the 1950's... a place where race relations weren't much better than they'd been in 1865, the year that the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery and gave people of color their freedom. However, it didn't offer equality. It's the summer of 1950 when 12-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr. and his older sister Gloria, meet up with 17-yera old, Lyle McCormack, the son of Red McCormack, the man who basically owns and runs the small town of Gracetown. Lyle gives Gloria a look that most any adult will understand, and then touches her arm and says things he never should have said. Meaning only to defend his sister... Robbie kicks him. Robbie's efforts were well intended but he still gets a bloody ear from Red and a six-month sentence at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory with a dark past in which boys of all races often vanish forever, from the state. It's doesn't come as a big surprise that the school is full of racists and Robbie soon learns that the punishment...no matter how small the offense, is quickly administered, extreme, physical, and very, very common. What is a surprise is that Robbie finds he can see ghosts, all the time and everywhere. They don't harm Robbie and he soon learns how to deal with them. He even believes that he can communicate with his dead mother through the pipes in the showers. Most of the ghosts begin to show signs of their past violence and Robbie starts to unveil the school's dark, and violent history through these apparitions. Gloria does everything in her power to rescue her little brother while also coping with their father's absence and the changing ways in which she has to navigate the world as a black girl that's now seen as a "young black woman" by the people of the town. I was born and grew up in Florida, so I wasn't too surprised that I found that there was a great deal of truth in this haunting story that delves deep into the realities of what is known as the "Jim Crow South". The horrors of schools like the Gracetown School for Boys and the atrocities that went on inside their walls, were unfortunately real. The author manages beautifully to deliver a historical fictional narrative that will hit readers in the face with the ugliness of racism, while she also makes every hero in the story a person of color and excellence...figures like Zora Neale Hurston, Thurgood Marshall, and Louis Armstrong. Yes, there is a great deal of abuse here and discriminating words are constantly used a weapon to insult and belittle folks, but ultimately the narrative comes across with love and perseverance making it memorable.… (lisätietoja)