Source of book: I own this
This is the latest book I read with a couple of my online friends. We need a catchy name for the club, so I can create an index for the books we have read and discussed.
Anyway, this book was nominated by K, who recently graduated from University of Connecticut, and took a class from the author. Since the class was really good, the book seemed like it might be too.
And indeed, it is a good book, and one I can recommend, particularly to readers who like horror or horror-adjacent books.
It’s a pretty cool premise: The 1920s iteration of the Ku Klux Klan, except that the truest believers are actually zombies.
I hesitate to say too much about the plot, because this is a book that shouldn’t be spoiled. I will say, however, that it involves the historic membership induction rally that the Klan held on Stone Mountain in Georgia, a moment that is largely seen as the rebirth of the Klan. The book imagines what might have happened had that rally been, well, interrupted.
As in real life, the rally was inspired by the movie, Birth of A Nation (which was itself based on a book, The Klansman), a glorification of the Klan of the Reconstruction Era. The book sees the movie as a literal witchcraft ritual, to summon unholy spirits. Which, depending on your view of demons, is not inaccurate.
Fighting against the Klan in this book is a group of radical women (some of them queer), aided by the Aunties, who are reminiscent of Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which from A Wrinkle In Time, and supported by their partners. So very much female-centric, gender flipping, and all the good anti-racist vibes.
The enemies are complicated. The Klan members are essentially in two categories: the ordinary Klans, casually racist and the general support for Klan activities, and the Ku Kluxes, who are supernatural and zombie-like despite how normal they might look in daylight.
According to B, who has read a lot of Lovecraft, the book has a lot of nods in his direction, perhaps with a bit of venom directed at his notorious racism and sexism. There is also a bit of a nod at the old “trickster” stories in African American culture. In addition, the cultural background of the book is “Gullah,” the west African turned American system of language, food, art, culture - and witchcraft. The name refers to a ritual dance in Gullah culture, one that has greatly influenced African American music ever since. I highly recommend Zora Neale Hurston’s work, Mules and Men, for an introduction to this culture; and Albert Murray’s book, Stomping the Blues, for the musical origins of Blues in the Ring Shout tradition, and also of the “juke joints,” one of which plays a key role in this book.
Further than that, I will not go as far as plot. I wrote down some great lines, however.
The opening scene, describing a Klan march, is hilarious satire.
A brass band competing with that racket, though everybody down there I swear clapping on the one and the three.
If you are a musician, you know. But also, if you (like me) survived Bill Gothard’s cult, or any number of Fundamentalist groups that claimed that music by black people gave you demons, you know exactly how obsessed they were with keeping the beat on one and three.
Another scene has one character talking about his experience fighting in France in the war, and also the French food.
Sadie don’t look convinced. “Well, don’t know what type of white folk they got in France. But the ones here don’t put no proper seasoning in they food unless they got Niggers to do so for ‘em.”
A reminder that most “American” food was actually created by black folk. And oh yes, I do know some Mayo-Americans who seem allergic to proper seasoning.
For those unfamiliar with The Birth of a Nation, the author gives a bit of background.
The Birth of a Nation comes from a book. Two books really - The Clansman and The Leopard’s Spots, by a man named Thomas Dixon. Dixon’s father was a South Carolina slaveowner in the Confederacy. And a sorcerer. Way I hear it, a heap of the big ups in the Confederacy was into sorcery. Dark stuff too. Jeff Davis, Bobby Lee, Stonewall Jackson - all in league with worse than the devil.
Later, Nathan Bedford Forrest gets mentioned as another conjurer. And I agree. White Supremacy is the doctrine of demons.
The explanation of what Ku Kluxes are:
Buckrah devils is what she calls Ku Kluxes. Fool buckrah she reserves for Klans who ain’t turned. She very particular about us not killing them who still human. Say every sinner got a chance to get right. I suppose. Way I see it, one less Klan, one less chance of a Ku Klux. But I bides by her rules and shake my head.
Exactly what happens to people to turn them into Ku Kluxes is the subject of speculation later in the book.
Molly shakes her head. “We haven’t been able to gauge that. Once infected, morphological transformation seems dependent on the individual.”
That’s science talk for how Klan folk turn Ku Klux. Molly says it’s like an infection, or a parasite. And it feed on hate. She says chemicals in the body change up when you hate strong. When the infection meets that hate, it starts growing until it’s powerful enough to turn the person Ku Klux. Ask me, it’s plain evil them Klans let in, eating them up until they hollow inside. Leave behind bone-white demons who don’t remember they was men.
I feel pretty much the same way about the MAGA virus. It feeds on the hate people already had in them, and manifests as them forgetting their humanity.
The book also has an interesting discussion of Marx, and why seeing everything as being about labor versus capital is problematic in a place like the United States. Racism drives essentially everything in American politics, and as much as a better division of GDP favoring labor would be a good thing, it will not be enough to create social equality. And, sadly, it is still working class white people who are the first to sling hate and violence against black people.
As many have pointed out before, poor white people might suffer economically from their political choices. Heck, it can even be literally killing them. But they still get something out of white supremacy that they see as important.
“We must strive to show them they too are exploited. And not by those they are taught to hate, from which they earn nothing.”
“Oh see, I disagree,” Chef retorts. “White folk earn something from that hate. Might not be wages. But knowing we on the bottom and they set above us - just as good, maybe better.”
The book also notes the way that Jewish and black people were set against each other, rather than becoming allies. There is a brief reference to “Mr. Frank,” who is the subject of the musical, Parade. You can read my post about that for more on the story, and how the case ended up having prejudice against both Jewish and black people driving the events.
Another great passage involves my distant relative by marriage, Charles Darwin. By the time this book is set in, it was widely understood in scientific circles that all humans originated in Africa. Hearing this leads a character to have a big epiphany.
“White folk is niggers!” Sadie repeats, slamming her glass hard enough to make Lester jump. “This whole time, they putting on and acting high and mighty! But they just niggers who stayed in the cold too long! Bet that’s why they so mean. Know deep down they come out that same jungle - that the nigger they made up in their heads right under they own skin!”
I recognized another thing from my own history in the raid on the juke joint by the Klan midway through the book. The leader, Butcher Clyde, is waiving a Bible above his head, and saying things white preachers so love to say.
“Brethren, we must do our best to stamp out the vices in our midst! Fornication! Drinking! Heathen music! It’s left to us to correct the waywardness of these simple minds, as a father must govern his children and home - delivering stripes onto the wicked so that they might be persuaded to follow a straight path.”
One of the bits of wisdom the Aunties impart is about the idea that there are multiple potential futures.
Aunt Margaret sighs. “Girl, every choice we make is a new tomorrow. Whole worlds waiting to be born.”
At the beginning of each chapter, there is a short bit about a particular Gullah shout. This one was my favorite:
The Shout Eve and Adam tell ‘bout them two listening to that wicked snake and eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. When God call out, Adam don’t answer. So He get to asking Eve. She say Adam going ‘round to pick up leaves to hide his nakedness, now that he know shame. When we do that Shout, we go ‘round pretending to gather up leaves like Adam, hiding from the Lord. Suppose we making fun but it’s a warning too - be mindful of getting mixed up with old wicked snakes.
I’ll quote this one because it made me laugh.
It’s raining the Sunday night we make our way up Stone Mountain.
Not no Presbyterian rain neither. I’m talking a shaking and hollerin’ Baptist downpour.
And this description of the big Klan gathering on Stone Mountain:
All here to see their god be born.
For those of us who were Evangelicals, but left, it is so obvious that Trump has become their new god, and that his rallies are just another Klan rally, which in turn are just another manifestation of the old revivals, just centered around a particular kind of god.
It is a bit of a spoiler, but one of the main plot points is that the Klan leader offers Maryse the chance to become a right wing leader, so to speak. To turn Uncle Tom.
I found it fascinating that when she expresses the risk to her own leader, the response is this:
“Got to trust the soldier next to you will do the right thing. No use worrying about it.”
Another interesting bit is the confrontation between Clyde and Maryse. He understands full well how racism works emotionally.
“As you know, we specialize in that thing you call hate. To your kind, it’s just a feeling. A bit of rage behind the eyes that can drive you to commit all sorts of beautiful violence. But for us, those feelings are a power of their own. We feed on it. Treasure it as life.” He turns to the gathered Klans. “Look at all that beautiful hate. We didn’t put it there, was always growing inside. Just gave it a nudge to help it blossom. A few reels of celluloid and they come to us whole and willing.”
Again, MAGA in a nutshell. But the problem is that that kind of hate is weak. It has nothing real behind it.
“You see, the hate they give is senseless. They already got power. Yet they hate those over who they got control, who don;t really pose a threat to them. Their fears aren’t real - just insecurities and inadequacies. Deep down they know that. Makes their hate like…watered-down whiskey.”
When I think of the incomprehensible hate that right wingers have toward transgender people, who pose literally no threat whatsoever, this line rings true. It is just about their own insecurities about their own masculinity or femininity, and their inadequacies at ever succeeding at being manly or womanly enough, whatever those mean. And of course this goes for racism and misogyny too.
In the end, what Clyde offers Maryse is a common enough temptation - perhaps why a certain famous temptation is in the Bible.
What they are offering me is power. Power to protect. Power to avenge. Power over the life and death of my people. When colored folk ever had anyone offer us so much? When we ever have the power not to be scared no more? Ain’t we been suffering and dying all this time, at the hands of monsters in human form? What then if we make a pact with some other monsters? What we owe this world that so despises and brutalizes us? Why lift a hand to save it when it ain’t never done a damn thing to save us?
It is fitting, then, that the final battle comes down to music. To the Shouts.
It’s like the night at the juke joint. A mashed-up chorus, with no real timing or rhythm. As if it was created to unmake music. Like before it threatens to take me off balance and I stumble under it. But no! I got songs too. I listen to my sword, letting those chanting voices fill me up. For a moment it seems the two are battling: my songs and his uneven chorus. But it was never a real fight. What I have is beautiful music inspired by struggle and fierce love. What he got ain’t nothing but hateful noise. Not a hint of soul to it. Like unseasoned meat.
I have mentioned before that genre fiction isn’t really my thing. That said, I can enjoy it if it is truly well written. This book may be horror, fantasy, gothic, whatever you want to call it, but it is really good, and I quite enjoyed it. It’s a quick read, not that long, but tightly plotted, economically written, and a ripping good yarn.
No comments:
Post a Comment