My reading and listening these days brings me to the conclusion that we all receive these ancestral gifts: hauntings, demons, and ghosts. While I’ve been reading books on Irish myths and fairyland, I’ve also been listening to audiobooks with magical or supernatural elements: horror, psychological thriller, historical science fiction. I haven’t read many very scary books in the past few years. (Exception: The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson.) So I decided to get a sense of what contemporary authors are working on. I’m interested in myths or magic passed down through generations, particularly if it takes on a scary element. And while I’m reading about Irish gods right now, I’m also on the lookout for books with Mexican heritage incorporated into the story. Either of these cultural backgrounds is a bonus for me.
Ancestral Gifts: Demons
River Woman, River Demon by Jennifer Givhan is a psychological thriller. It’s the story of a woman who empowers herself through ancestral spiritual practices of magick. While Eva Santos Moon knows the ways of brujería and curanderismo of her ancestors, she’s at a particularly bad time in her life. Though she is a ceramics artist, she is unable to create. She feels deeply disconnected from her roots and sometimes blacks out although she doesn’t know why. All this is going on when she finds Cecilia, a good friend to both her and her husband (Jericho), dead on the edge of their property. Cecilia’s blood is in both Eva and Jericho’s cars. The whole tragedy feels like the mysterious drowning death of Eva’s childhood friend, Karma, many years previous.
Jericho is arrested for murder, and as he’s a Black man, Eva fears he will not receive justice. While she attempts to use her powers to understand Cecilia’s death, she has a closer look into the relationship between Cecilia and Jericho. Eva begins to wonder if the two were having an illicit affair. Perhaps, she thinks, she shouldn’t support Jericho while he’s in jail but simply attempt to get away. Maybe get away with a man who knows her childhood trauma.
I always enjoy an unreliable narrator, and Eva is that. There’s some great scary twists here involving magick, icons, and unseen malevolent spirits. Plus, there’s the evergreen terror of ‘check the kids.’ Bonus: if you’re a fan of great language (images, metaphors, the perfect description), you’ll love it.
Ancestral Gifts: Hauntings (Ethics Gone Wrong)
I loved Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, which gave me a similar feeling of terror as Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. The protagonist, Noemí Taboada, receives a letter from a frightened cousin, begging to be saved from her life as a newlywed in an isolated country manor. Noemí responds with a visit and uncovers some truly horrifying truths.
After enjoying Mexican Gothic, I thought The Daughter of Doctor Moreau would be another good choice. Both books deal with the terrible treatment of indigenous peoples in Mexico while questioning the ethics of playing god. Daughter is Frankenstein with the bonus of a history lesson.
Carlota Moreau grows up on a hidden estate where her father practices creating hybrid beings, ones made for hard plantation labor and blind obedience. They are meant to replace the indigenous people of the Yucatán who are being worked to death. Several of these hybrids are Carlota’s good friends and playmates. The doctor is left to practice his strange arts in peace until the son of Dr. Moreau’s patron arrives and shifts the balance among Carlota, her friends, and the alcoholic overseer who assists Dr. Moreau and is smitten with Carlota as she comes into womanhood.
I think Library Journal summarized it well: “This is historical science fiction at its best: a dreamy reimagining of a classic story with vivid descriptions of lush jungles and feminist themes. Some light romance threads through the heavier ethical questions concerning humanity.” Bonus: Forget the lessons on making the creator love you. Take a lesson on escaping the creator.
Ancestral Gifts: Haunted Houses
While How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix is neither about Mexican nor Irish heritage (it’s Southern horror), it is about how family decisions haunt the living for generations. So I decided to give it a go.
Louise’s parents die in a tragic car accident, and she must leave her five-year-old daughter in San Francisco and go back to Charleston to deal with her parents’ property and also with her estranged brother, Mark.
While Mark appears to be the guy who never grew up and is not adulting in his thirties, as the siblings work to prepare their family home for sale, a far deeper story about his problems comes out. For both siblings, their mom’s lifelong obsession with dolls and puppets–one of which she seemed to love more than her children–sets them on a new track as the puppets come to life and have no intention of leaving.
This novel is full of gothic horror. Seriously, what is creepier than puppet demons? As Louise and Mark try to exorcize the malevolent spirits from the family home, they find themselves in serious danger–literally the life and limb kind. With Louise realizing that the puppet Pupkin can take over the actions of any of her family members, including herself and her daughter, she needs to take bigger and bigger risks.
I would have liked Haunted House to move more quickly (some scenes are repetitive), but the general weirdness of the creepy Pupkin wanting to play and play and play and play kept me listening. Bonus: Dueling generational imaginations.
Hauntings, Demons, Ghosts: Suggestions
If you know of any good books that might fit my reading list, please let me know in the comments. I’m slowly reading Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth. Meanwhile, check out my posts on The Personnel of Fairyland here and here and Irish Wonders here and here.
Coming Soon
Up next is Arribada by Mariana Sánchez Celis. This is not horror, but includes family secrets and parental missteps, so it’s a fit. Like Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s work, it has a social justice theme. I happened upon Celis while watching the video podcast Life of JEM, which is a series of author interviews and discussions of writing. Arribada sounded like a great read. It’s also available in Spanish, so I want to try it for language practice.