Domestic Horror in Sarah Langan's Trad Wife

 Trad Wife by Sarah Langan

Trad Wife book cover

Author Sarah Langan

In her excellent book Scream With Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism (1968-1980) that reframes 1970s classic horror films, Professor Eleanor Johnson establishes a new genre of horror films called domestic horror. As Johnson explains, films like The Exorcist, The Shining, The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Stepford Wives all feature female protagonists who are confined to a dwelling place and often face restricted freedom, a male antagonist who also inhabits the same space and is not easily removed, and horror centered usually around children, reproduction, or sex, while the female protagonist also experiences some kind of physical threat. Johnson explains that as women were working more outside of the home and delaying marriage and motherhood to focus on education and careers, society recognized this shift and some movies recognized the cultural shifts that these changes may have represented. However, it was only after the Dobbs’ decision that eliminated the federal protection for women’s reproductive rights that prompted Dr. Johnson to reevaluate these films. Although her focus was on horror films, I would add Sarah Langan’s mind-bending, genre-blending novel Trad Wife to this category.  Although Trad Wives are a much-discussed and somewhat controversial topic online, Langan establishes she’s “telling a particular story, about the ominous turn of a cultural wheel toward something ugly” in her Acknowledgements at the end of the book (make sure you read it!). I found her discussion of how she approached this novel and the subject of trad wives especially interesting since earlier this year I read Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear, the buzzy and scathing satire of trad wives that has received both commendations and criticisms about its portrayal of trad wife influencers and its sense of realism. Although satire primarily functions in extreme caricatures and exaggerated examples, Langan explains “I quickly realized that I didn’t want to poke fun at either the phenomenon or the women involved”, and Trad Wife establishes a world and movement that is, in the words of William S. Burroughs is “ancient, corrupted” and defined by “control systems”, those particularly focused on women, whether they are employees, daughters, sisters, mothers, or wives. The female protagonist, Jenny Kaplan, seems to be the antithesis of Mia Wright, a trad wife influencer who runs Black Swan Farm and its subsidiary products that she enlists her followers to sell in a seeming pyramid scheme. As a reporter working for Bread & Circus magazine, Jenny is a writer who has been struggling with the shift in journalism over time, seeing her work reduced to lists and eye-catching click bait. Jenny is also grieving in a way, as we learn about the dissolution of her relationship with her fiancé, Jarron, who seemed to mentally deteriorate during COVID, with Jenny eventually asking his parents to pick him up from their shared apartment. Jenny’s personal and professional challenges present a kind of inverse experience to Mia, whose increasingly popular videos that demonstrate her traditional, conservative beliefs and messy and sometimes harmful attempts with recipes have drawn wide-viewership and followers willing to become part of her ambassador program for Black Swan Farm. I loved how Langan presents this kind of inversion between Jenny and Mia. Although Mia is challenged by the constraints in digital journalism, she is inspired to write an intensely private memoir like piece about Jarron (without naming him) and the challenges she experienced. The piece goes viral, attracting significant interest, but also significant, misogynistic trolls (especially DirtyGarry), who eventually call for her cancellation, where she loses her job at Bread & Circus. The trolls don’t stop with her job, but also pressure the cancellation of a film production based on Jenny’s viral piece “Drano”. Although the virality splits society, Jenny does have one fan, Mia Wright, whose unlikely admiration leads to an opportunity for a freelance profile negotiated by Jenny’s former editor.

There’s a lot of build up in the first quarter of the book, and Jenny’s progression from struggling writer to viral sensation to cancelled moves quickly, but it also captures some of the milkshake duck like movement of today’s digital cancel culture. While Jenny didn’t necessarily do anything wrong, as an outspoken and independent woman trying to establish her voice, she’s a threat to the Brotherhood and trolls like DirtyGarry who are either too insecure to see women’s rise in society as progress or are just incel losers who, in the words of Toni Morrison, can only feel tall when others are on their knees. Nevertheless, her cancellation sets up Jenny as needing to escape and needing a byline to continue writing and establishing her name (plus, she also needs the money to pay rent). It also gives her time to research and study Mia Wright’s virality, something that Jenny initially approaches with disdain and skepticism, but something about Mia’s videos, in which Mia shouts out viewers, Jenny among them, as being seen engages Jenny and allows her to see elements of Mia that are so appealing to others. However, upon watching her videos, notably a Taco Tuesday disaster in which Mia falls to the ground, spilling the ingredients, but still eating it off the floor, Jenny notices a tell in which Mia signals to her dog to knock her down. Other videos reveal cuts, bruises, and falls that Jenny deems suspicious if not purposeful. Yet, it’s the humiliation, the pain, and violence that Mia endures, all to support her husband and 8 children, that viewers love. That and Mia’s call to cherish the seed that both perplex Jenny, but also intrigues her, wondering how and why Mia is so popular.

Jenny eventually travels out to Black Swan Farm in Sylvan, PA, located in Western PA, not far from Eerie. Langan intersperses these chapters with various other forms of writing, including newspaper articles and historical reports from town that detail its history of suspected witchcraft that culminated in Corrie’s fire. I don’t want to get into the specifics of the story, but I really loved how Langan incorporates this kind of folk horror into the narrative, showing how systems of control have been a part of American society since before the start of the nation. Jenny’s initial interview session leaves Mia feeling a little anxious about how she might be portrayed, especially since Jenny is on to her tricks to attract more viewers. As a result, Mia invites Jenny to spend a week at the farm where she will live the trad wife life, helping out around the farm and learning more about Mia’s day to day responsibilities. While Jenny’s photographer understands the project as a kind of Freaky Friday shoot, Mia also views it as a city mouse -country mouse story of mutual understanding of differences. However, as Jenny spends more and more time at the farm, she gradually discovers things aren’t what they seem. From the odd behavior of the children to the rancid odor in her room to her loss of clumps of hair and scalp every night during sleep, Jenny’s experience at Black Swan goes from strange to frightening. Langan creates a mysterious setting that gradually becomes more and more uncanny and unsettling, as weird and creepy events begin to overtake Jenny’s stay. One of the elements of the farm and house that I appreciate so much was the strange yellow wallpaper with jagged shapes that seemed to spell out words and phrases that Jenny couldn’t seem to decipher at first. It has to be a reference to Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s classic short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, where a woman likely experiencing post-partum depression is given the rest cure, but is really confined to a small upper room with hideous yellow wallpaper. Eventually she envisions a woman breaking free from the patterns in the wallpaper. The color yellow is prominently featured throughout the book, and it is also probably a reference to The King in Yellow as Carcosa is also mentioned. Yet, I really appreciated the references to “The Yellow Wallpaper” and tying this story into the theme of domestic horror. The house and land belong to Mia’s husband Steadman’s family. While Steadman is somewhat absent minded, his other brothers serve similar authoritative roles of control as the town’s doctor and the town’s sheriff. Their roles similarly reveal to Jenny the control that the men have over Mia’s family, and how Mia’s online persona’s bliss in domesticity and submission is contrasted with the lack of agency and voice she has over her own family. It’s a fascinating parallel and criticism of the artificiality of social media. As Langan mentioned, she’s not here to critique the women involved as trad wives; if anything, she’s sympathetic to the submission and control they experience. Yet, Langan, like Caro Claire Burke in Yesteryear, is critical of the system that allows this kind of submission to perpetuate and project a voice for women rather than providing them platforms and agency to speak for themselves.

Trad Wife is a wild ride- it’s shocking, violent, and creepy. It’s a book I couldn’t put down, especially in the last quarter of the book. I won’t spoil any of the ending, but the story has many twists and turns and relies on some great use of folk and body horror. Trad Wife is the great kind of horror that challenges our ideas about society while also being entertaining and engaging. Both Jenny and Mia are interesting and sympathetic characters. Langan’s story calls out things in the world like pyramid schemes, for-profit schools, and our love for violence and humiliation online to keep us glued to our screens. It made me think more about the users on the other end of the screen and what their situation might be to post something that reveals their missteps, their degradation, and their shame. I loved the way that Langan critiques all of these elements of society while also creating an entertaining and creepy story that’s filled with so much weird imagery and events. Many thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this excellent and timely domestic horror novel. Highly recommended! 

 Return to Sleepy Hollow by Casey Gilly with artwork by Savanna Mayer

Return to Sleepy Hollow book cover

Author Casey Gilly

Artist Savanna Mayer

Many thanks to IDW Publishing and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of Return to Sleepy Hollow by Casey Gilly with artwork by Savanna Mayer. This story is based on Tim Burton’s film version of the classic American tale of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving. While the original story investigated the power of folklore and the power of reason to counter superstition, Burton’s vision seemed more steeped in goth and horror. Gilly and Mayer employ these darker visions to create a moody and atmospheric iteration of Ichabod Crane’s return to the village he helped save by solving the mystery of the Headless Horseman. Nearly 15 years later, the town experiences a resurgence in strange deaths occurring in the woods. Many of the bodies are found with roots, branches, and leaves in their bodies, which are completely drained of blood. The town is at a loss to explain these deaths, and call upon Ichabod to investigate these strange, ritualistic deaths. To further complicate Ichabod’s return, his former lover, Katrina Van Tassel, is Sleepy Hollow’s undertaker, and is raising her daughter, Lotte, who receives sudden, ghostly visions that may provide some insight into the victims of these murders.

Return to Sleepy Hollow is a great horror mystery with elements of supernatural possessions and witchcraft that I initially didn’t anticipate occurring in this story. The story moves from traditional folklore to something more like folk horror as we learn more about the sacrifices Sleepy Hollow’s founders made in order to help the village grow and prosper. Mayer’s creepy and sometimes gory artwork adds to the sense of dread and doom within this book.  I enjoyed this mystery, although keeping track of some of the characters in the beginning of the book was a little difficult. Nevertheless, sticking with the story to see how the mystery is solved is worth the read. Recommended!

 

Muñeca by Cynthia Gomez - A Gothic Tale set in 1968

Muñeca by Cynthia Gomez

Muñeca book cover

Author Cynthia Gomez

Big thanks to G. P. Putnam’s Sons and NetGalley for sending an advanced copy of Cynthia Gomez’s spellbinding Gothic tale Muñeca. I’m so glad that I read this book, as it came after reading a deeply serious and complicated book about race and politics. While Muñeca is a short and highly engaging read, it also features some interesting commentary on race, class, gender and sexuality, as well as detailing California’s complicated history with the indigenous people, Spanish land grants and white settlement right before statehood. In fact, I was amazed at how subtly and deftly Gomez is able to include these complicated historical elements in a novel that was also fun to read. It’s a testament to her knowledge and skills as a researcher and writer. Furthermore, it’s one of the reasons that Muñeca operates on different levels and transcends typical boundaries in genres. The book was not what I was expecting, but I ended up loving the character of Natalia, or Nati, Fuentes. Although the book takes place in 1968 around the Bay Area, when young people flocked to San Francisco, leaving flowers in their hair, Nati searches for her own tribe, seeking to define herself through the women in her life. Plus, she’s got such great taste in music, especially soul and R & B, which features prominently throughout the book. Furthermore, I loved that as she’s taken on the job of caretaker for Violeta Miramontes, a young heiress who seems to be locked into a kind of paralysis that prevents her from speaking or moving, Nati secretly reads her The Autobiography of Malcolm X  covering it up with a copy of Rebecca, a book about a husband who harbors a secret from his new wife, while Malcolm X speaks to the kind of revolutionary spirit that Nati brings to the Miramontes’ estate, seeking to empower and transform those who are trapped by the oppressive forces of the house. I really loved Gomez’s subtle signaling about Nati’s character, whether it was through these book choices or her awesome musical taste in Aretha, Otis, and Carla Thomas. She just seemed like the kind of character I’d want to hang out with and listen to records.

Nati is not only really cool, but she’s also thoughtful and strategic. She takes the job as Violeta’s caretaker because her mother previously worked for the Miramontes, one of the various Mexican American housekeepers who populate and maintain the estate. However, as we learn, Nati’s mom also worked in a factory, organizing her co-workers for better conditions, but ultimately developed lung cancer, like so many of her co-workers. Through Nati’s reflections on her mother, we learn that she also considered becoming a teacher but ultimately worked for the Miramontes to help secure opportunities for Nati. We see her striving for a better life. Nati’s mom, though, differs from Nati in other ways. As we learn, Nati’s grandmom is a spiritual healer who has used her ability to make spells and potions to make money. As a young mother emigrating from Mexico who struggled to work and care for 2 daughters, she found the spells and potions a means to an end, not really caring or considering the impact they might have or how they might be used. Nati’s mother, recognizing that some of these spells are misused or end up harming others, rejects this way and ultimately distances herself from her mother. Nati, on the other hand, seeks out her grandmother as she gradually discovers her own skills and abilities with spell casting. As Nati begins to explore her newfound sense of self and seeks her grandmother’s knowledge and insight, her mother finds out and puts a stop to it. Yet Nati recovers the magic box she threw away and practices in secret. For Nati, magic and spells are not only a connection to her identity and culture, but they also serve as a means of empowerment in a society that deems Latinx women as only fit for work as maids and cooks. While Nati also pursues a college degree, she can only find work in a bank. Furthermore, Nati’s mother sought to fight this same system and worked to organize her colleagues in the factory, only to lose her job and end up working as a maid for the Miramontes, one of the more powerful landowning families in the Bay Area. And with Nati’s mother eventually contracting cancer, I couldn’t help but look at Nati’s pursuit of magic and spells as a means to power and identity outside of the system that defines and relegates women like her to pre-determined positions.

The other analogy that Nati’s life and pursuit of magic follow are the fact that Nati loves women. She never calls herself a lesbian or gay, which I’m not even sure these terms were used in the 1960s, but her language to describe her love of women and the kinship she seeks in the house parties and bars points to something more meaningful than just sexual attraction. It was really moving to see how powerful and deep her attraction to women is, and how she realized this from an early age. Similar to the magic, it’s something that she feels is deeply a part of her identity, but also something that she feels she needs to keep discrete and somewhat hidden from others who might not understand. Nevertheless, Nati moves in with Doris, and they frequently host other women whose families kick them out for their sexuality. Not only does this subtle example speak to the kind of discrimination and challenges that people identifying as LGBTQ faced in the 1960s, but it also speaks to the kind of community they established to support one another. It’s another brilliant, subtle detail of the book that I found packed in to this brief book, and I was amazed at how much it conveyed about Nati’s life and character.

The main challenge of Muñeca, though, is focused on Nati’s care of Violeta and her attempts to break Violeta out of her paralysis, which Nati believes was induced by a spell. Thus, she uses her own magic in various attempts to bring Violeta back, enabling her to walk and talk. First, though, Nati discovers a way to communicate with Violeta through blinking, something neither Violeta’s mother nor Violeta’s husband, Andrès. We later learn that Andres’ family fled Cuba during the revolution, leaving their wealth in Cuba, and ending up in California. As a result, we learn that Andrès married Violeta for her land and family’s wealth, and not for love. Furthermore, Andrès continues the bad behavior of these kind of wealthy, landowning men who seek out fortune and other women, while they know their wives must remain silent and faithful at home, seemingly powerless to divorce or alter their husband’s behavior. We see this with Mrs. Miramontes, and the cycle repeats with Violeta and Andrès, and even though Mrs. Miramontes understands the pain and suffering this causes, she continues to allow Andrès to treat her daughter harshly. Again, Gomez packs so much into brief reminiscences or memories that not only serve important plot points but also highlight the kind of gender, social, or class inequalities that existed at this time and continue to persist in some ways. Despite being a relatively short book, it’s filled with meaningful events and exchanges that operate beyond plot points.

Although Nati’s first attempts at reviving Violeta fail, she finds a way to transfer Violeta’s spirit temporarily to the body of a doll, which seems is partly where the title of the book comes from (Muñeca is Spanish for doll). I also wondered if the title was partly a reference to the roll of dolls, and how they are often silent toys who represent ideals of beauty and dress for women. They can often be shaped and altered to fit the owner’s desires and goals but have no autonomy or agency of their own. Similar to her work to free Violeta, Nati gives new power and life to the doll, bringing some sense of agency and the ability to communicate to someone who was largely ignored and relegated to a room of her own. We also learn that part of Nati’s concern for Violeta is that she is in love with Violeta. As Nati experiments with different ways to attempt to break the spell, she finds new ways for Violeta to experience the freedom of inhabiting different bodies, one of which is Nati’s. Nati develops a spell to switch bodies temporarily. I loved this kind of creativity, and how Violeta leaves Nati letters and notes before she returns to her paralyzed self. It’s an inventive element of the story and creates both tension and romance as the two women briefly become one, enabling each to inhabit the lived life of the other.

I loved this book and couldn’t put it down. The chapters are short, and this kept me reading, wanting to find out more about how Nati’s plan to rescue Violeta was going. This book was recommended to me based on my interest in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s other books, most notably The Bewitching. I can see how Muñeca shares some similar themes with The Bewitching, including strong Latinx female protagonists willing to challenge male dominated and aristocratic, traditional families who seem to control large portions of society. Both books also feature elements of spells and magic used to gain power and access. However, I also kept thinking of Isabel Cañas’s book Vampires of El Norte, which also contains strong Mexican female protagonists who are seeking to challenge land rights that largely prevented women from being landowners at the time. Muñeca is a great book to add to growing collection of books by writers like Garcia-Moreno and Cañas, yet it’s also unique and beautiful. Although it’s a relatively short book with brief chapters, it will keep readers engaged, and there’s so much depth and meaning to the various details in the story. It’s also steeped in wonderful Gothic details and decay, and some really amazing magic spells. It’s a wonderful, fun, and exciting read, and something that should appeal to a broad range of readers, but especially those who like a good Gothic story featuring magic. Highly recommended! 

Religious Horror That Fights Back with Marian Heretic Volume One

 Marian Heretic Volume One by Tini Howard; illustrated by Joe Jaro

Marian Heretic Volume One Cover

Author Tini Howard

Artist Jose "Joe" Jaro

Many thanks to BOOM! Studios and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of Marian Heretic Volume One by Tini Howard with illustrations by Joe Jaro. I was intrigued by the combination of religious horror and rebellion, and the front cover, which features an image of the main character, Sister Marian with her magical monstrance, in action was also very appealing. The story follows Sister Marian, a mother superior of a group of other novitiates who are all witch hunters and work for the patriarchal Holy Father Church. As Sister Marion continues to do the work of these male leaders of the church that often involves hunting and executing women they find threatening, she begins to question her role in the violence against women, especially those with unique powers from the Goddess like her own. The Goddess is a figure that the Church doesn’t acknowledge and actually feels is a threat to their control of the women in their congregation. Beyond the cool battles Sister Marian has with the various witches who possess different powers, she experiences this inner turmoil where she wants to honor the Goddess who bestowed her own powers and avoid the threats of violence from the Holy Father Church. It’s a cool story that’s rooted in much of the patriarchy and discrimination against women that has long been a part of the Catholic Church for many years; however, Howard’s story and Jaro’s kinetic illustrations create a kind of timeless narrative that could be taking place in the past but also has a somewhat futuristic feel to it. I really liked the imagery and artwork, that features both some classic Catholic iconography and some action-oriented and horror-themed imagery of witches and witch-hunters inflicting damage.

The story is religious-horror themed, but it also features a lot of action, and in the later section, we learn more about how Sister Marion realized her powers and eventually came to work for the Holy Father Church. We also see her reaching out to some of the witches to learn more about their powers and their covens, and how they create a community of women who continue to honor the Goddess and reflect the power of women. There are a few elements of the story that I would have liked to see in this volume. For one, it was a little unclear about how the Holy Father Church came to power and why exactly they wanted to suppress the Goddess. I can understand the patriarchal element of it, but it seemed both a little too much like the Catholic Church and a little unlike it. It was the similarities that made the disparities somewhat confusing. I wish there was more of a storyline about how this church became so powerful or why they sought out to suppress witches. Furthermore, towards the end, we see Sister Marion with her Convent, a group of other women who while serving the Holy Father Church. They are equally devoted to Sister Marion and have some cool powers. I really wish we got to learn more about this group of women as they seemed like an interesting group. The coven of witches also had some really cool individuals within it, and I also wished that the volume was able to spend more time with these characters. They would have added more to the supernatural and horror elements of the story. Nevertheless, it’s rare to find a compelling religious horror story in comics. I hope that BOOM! Studios will produce more tales of Sister Marion Heretic, so we can continue to learn about how she fights the power and patriarchy.

 

Folk Horror and Witchcraft in The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

 The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Bewitching book cover

Author Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Big thanks to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of the prolific Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s new book The Bewitching, a slow-burn gothic-styled folk horror mystery that tracks three interrelated stories across different time periods and cultures. This is the third book I’ve read from Moreno-Garcia, and I have a few on my to-be-read list. I loved Silver Nitrate, and also found Mexican Gothic to be a compelling story that challenged assumptions about race, class, and history. The Bewitching combines both elements of these great novels, but I found it to be slower moving than the propulsive Silver Nitrate. However, Moreno-Garcia’s The Bewitching, which takes place in 1930s and 1990s New England and 1908 Mexico, shares similarities with other New England writers like Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, and even H.P. Lovecraft, who features in the book. In fact, some parts of the book, where Minerva Contreras, a graduate student working on her dissertation, reminded me of “The Dunwich Horror”, but updated Lovecraft’s story to be more accessible and engaging. This part of the book reminded me of how Moreno-Garcia took the cursed film urban legend in Silver Nitrate and updated it for a new context, recasting the idea. Moreno-Contreras mentions the idea of syncretic beliefs in the book’s afterword, and The Bewitching is a book that combines elements of the New England witch stories with those of Mexican culture, which, as Moreno-Garcia notes, are a combination of both European and pre-Columbian Mexican cultures. I loved this aspect of the book, and how Moreno-Garcia not only references and draws parallels between the beliefs and cultures of these two different groups, but also how the book references horror writers from both the past and the present. Minerva is researching a writer who corresponded with Lovecraft, but never really received the same kind of attention, and through Minerva’s research, we learn about Beatrice “Betty” Tremblay and her forgotten masterpiece The Vanishing. This 1998 storyline that follows Minerva’s research that uncovers the backstory to Tremblay’s The Vanishing was my favorite of the 3 narratives that converge around Minerva’s discoveries. First, Minerva has excellent taste in music, and her song choices throughout this part of the book reflect some of the best of the alternative music scene of the 90s. It was also interesting to recall a time when email was a relatively new form of communication on campus, so this part of the book took me back a bit. However, as I mentioned previously, Minerva’s story is also somewhat similar to Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror”, and it reminded me of the film adaptation even more so. Through her research, Minerva learns that Trembley’s novel based on the disappearance of one of Betty’s classmates, Ginny Somerset, an affluent student who fell in love with a local boy who worked in the college town’s factories. Lovecraft’s features a quest to find a book in a northeastern university (Miskatonic U, located in Arkham), but the film follows a female grad college student whose professor asks her to return the Necronomicon to the library. Moreno-Garcia’s story and the Lovecraft stories both feature a book and a mysterious, shady family that may have ulterior motives in exploiting the female co-ed population of the local university. I loved these allusions to Lovecraft and other horror writers—notably Trembley’s name is a reference to Paul Tremblay, and Minerva notices a plaque in her school that recognized a department head named Stephen Graham Jones. It was cool to see these kinds of horror references, but I also appreciated how Moreno-Garcia uses Trembley’s history to note often women horror writers are often overlooked for their contributions. Despite the challenges of researching her topic, Minerva continues to uncover Beatrice Trembley’s story and writings since other male horror writers have been overly covered, and because it seems like Trembley has contributed to Lovecraft’s stories as well as furthering the field of horror literature. It’s an important reminder of how often women are overlooked in this genre.

Minerva’s narrative initially alternates with the story of her Great Grandmother Nana Alba, and Alba’s story of trying to keep her family’s farm, Piedras Quebradas, together after the loss of her father. Alba’s story takes place in 1908 in Mexico after the death of Alba’s father, as her Uncle Arturo arrives to help with managing the farm even though he is more of a scholar and literary enthusiast who went to study at the university, plays piano, and speaks French. These alternating narratives were a little disorienting for me at first—there are many characters to become acquainted with, and there are these alternating stories that take place in two different time periods, with only Minerva’s and Alba’s family connection to join them. However, as both stories progress, the connections between the two stories become more apparent, especially as we learn more about mysterious disappearances on Stoneridge’s campus and around Piedras Quebradas. I don’t want to say more since there are some great twists and surprises towards the middle and end of the novel. This is also one of the strengths of this novel, yet I didn’t feel like the pace was as propulsive as Silver Nitrate. Rather, this was more like Mexican Gothic, where the action was a little slower, but the mysterious disappearances and strange characters as well as other strange events leave readers wondering about whether Minerva is losing her mind, facing incredible stress with her thesis, or if she’s possibly been bewitched by someone at Stoneridge.

Minerva’s chance encounter with a drunken frat-type guy outside of a party leads her to an encounter with Carolyn Yates, an elderly matron and board member of Stoneridge, who was also classmates with both Betty and Ginny, two individuals who Minerva is researching for her thesis. This encounter enables Minerva to access Betty’s private papers, which Carolyn has held onto for some time. While reading Betty’s journal and unpublished manuscript, readers are exposed to a third narrative, detailing Betty’s perspective and the complications that have arisen between Ginny, Carolyn, and two other men in their lives. We also witness Ginny’s gradual mental deterioration, and how reading this also affects Minerva, who begins to wonder whether she is experiencing similar strange events that plagued Ginny before her disappearance. Although introducing this third narrative brings in additional characters, I felt more aware of them since Minerva and Carolyn previously discussed them and provided some background; furthermore, this narrative furthers the overall narrative and allows us to question some of these mysterious disappearances on campus, especially one student who Minerva monitored as an RA. Moreno-Garcia’s strengths with weaving these various narrative strands into an intriguing and compelling tapestry is what makes this book a fun and exciting read. Although the story may seem a little slow at first, the second half of the book for both Minerva and Alba pick up and become both exciting and strange, in an interesting way, as they both encounter different forms of witchcraft, with Alba doing battle a teyolloquani, which I had to look up, and is a witch that sucks blood (from Nahuatl). There are some really amazing descriptions of this witch’s power, as it slowly makes its way closer and closer to Alba, eventually contacting her during sleep in a creepy and disturbing instance that reminded me of an extreme attack of night paralysis. Minerva also encounters forms of witchery, but her experience has more to do with apotrpaic marks (another word I had to look up), which she encountered in Betty’s papers. These two different, yet related, experiences with witches brings in the syncretic ideas that Moreno-Garcia talks about in the afterword, and shows more similarities than differences across cultures. As someone who is interested in culture and folklore, this was another great quality of the book that I enjoyed learning more about and discovering these similarities.

Overall this was a great book. I was slightly concerned with the pacing at the beginning of the book and the 3 dueling narratives, but Moreno-Garcia deftly weaves these strands together to make a meaningful and entertaining creation. Like Montserrat in Silver Nitrate, Minerva (also a telling name) is a strong, Latina character who brings her culture and experience as she navigates a new world of academia in New England, one that often neglects and overlooks female voices. However, Minerva seeks to make these contributions known, but also manages to recognize and acknowledge her Nana Alba’s folk knowledge and experiences as she learns more and more about how witchcraft affects the Stoneridge campus and community. This is a fun and exciting book, and one that I think could make a great limited series. Highly recommended, and I’m looking forward to catching up on some of Moreno-Garcia’s other books. 

A Complete History of The Exorcist (and its offshoots)

The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear 

by Nat Segaloff 

The Exorcist Legacy book cover

As soon as I saw that there was a book about the Exorcist I knew that I had to get it. I was so excited to find this book since The Exorcist is one of my all-time favorite movies. I begged my parents to take me to the stairs when we visited Washington DC when I was in 7^th grade. All I wanted to do was see Georgetown and where Father Karas tumbled down the steps. As a huge fan of the book and film, this book was great to read. It touched on all aspects of The Exorcist, including Blatty’s writing of the book, his work on the film, Friedkin’s career, and the various other film and television shows that have sprung up from this movie. Since the book arrived in 2023, there was some brief talk about the film that just arrived last year, but thankfully, this wasn’t much of the book’s focus (I actually didn’t like the movie that much). Regardless, I really liked that Segaloff not only is a fan, but also does considerable reporting about the book, film, and both of their legacies – more so the film. As a huge fan of the film and book, I still feel like I learned a lot about those involved with the film, especially Blatty and Friedkin. I also did not know about the various troubles surrounding the filming of the movie. It was really interesting to read more about The Heretic and how despite being directed by John Boorman, mostly those involved have basically distanced themselves from this film. I saw it like right after I watched the Exorcist, and I was probably 11 or so. I remember lots of weird elements about it—the locusts, the mirrors, but I haven’t revisited it. It sounds like I probably won’t, but this book provided some useful context for better understanding how this movie was made and why it was so bad. I really liked learning more about The Exorcist III as well, since I saw that in the theater and liked it, but struggled to understand it’s connection to the original since it really wasn’t about demonic possession. This book helped to collate all of the films around the Exorcist franchise and explain their relationship to one another, not only in the timelines, characters and stories, but also in how the productions came about. The summer before reading this book, I ended up watching the Paul Schrader version of the prequel, and I was pretty disappointed in that. I can see how it relates to some of Schrader’s characters, but it seems somewhat different from other movies in this franchise. Overall though, I really appreciated Segaloff’s efforts to bring the various stories together and to bring some context to the origins of the novel The Exorcist since both the novel and the film changed the shape of horror (both books and films). 

 Witches and Witch Hunts Through the Ages

by Phil Carradice

Witches & Witch Hunts Through the Ages by Phil Carradice

Witches Giving Babies to the Devil CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Macbeth Seeing Three Witches, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Thank you to Pen and Sword and NetGalley for allowing me to read a preview copy of Phil Carradice’s informative history of witches in his book Witchesand Witch Hunts Through the Ages. Prior to this, I finished reading TheDevil’s Best Trick by Randall Sullivan, another book that looks at both ancient and modern forms of evil, and how societies and those with power often seek to justify violence through labeling differences. Carradice’s book focuses more specifically on the role of witches over time, and how Christianity largely changed our views of witches and witchcraft, specifically in the Medieval Times. Carradice’s book begins with an overall explanation of our modern ideas about witches and witchcraft and how it has shifted. I really appreciated how much he used literature, especially Shakespeare, to identify the kinds of different roles that witches and cunning folk played in literature, and how it often has affected our views of what witches look like and how they behave. He then takes a historical look across different cultures and time periods, examining the role that witches played in societies, starting with the ancient world of Babylon and how witches (and priests) were often facilitators of the rituals that were such a significant part of ancient people’s lives, eventually moving into the world of Ancient Greeks and Romans. This is not the popular image of witches, but it helped to provide a different context and show how they were powerful people with a direct connection to the gods in the ancient world. This also might be why Christianity shifted the perspective to reconsider witches as evil, as those who are often using the black arts to gain power over others. Interestingly, Carradice goes on to show how Morgan LeFey, from Arthurian legends (and Merlin) could be considered witches due to their knowledge and powers in the stories. Although Arthurian legends are not real, Carradice makes effective use of the literature (as he did with Shakespeare) to serve as evidence of perceptions and attitudes towards witches, especially when there are contrasting views about Morgan’s actions and motives as both a healer and a harmer of Arthur. Carradice then gets more historical by analyzing the real witch hunts that started in the late Medieval Times, examining the Inquisition. He explores how witch hunts throughout Europe terrorized those who often were outsiders and did not have the support or power to speak up or defend themselves. Furthermore, I found it interesting to learn how many of the accusations stemmed from rivalries or desires for land ownership. Additionally, Carradice examines the life of the Witchfinder General, a self-appointed title for Matthew Hopkins. I didn’t know about the many trick that he and John Stearne employed to “identify” witches, nor that they were frequently paid by towns they went to. Carradice explains how witch finding was a lucrative business at the time, and we can see how those with power often benefitted from the loss of others. I also liked learning that these witch hunts were not relegated to Spain or England, but happened all over Europe. He uses both more famous examples, like the Loudun possession in 17^th century as well as more obscure cases. It was also amazing to learn that royalty were also not exempt from these accusations by examining and detailing the lives of some wealthy landowning individuals (often women) who were accused of being witches. Although primarily focused on England, Carradice examines the case of Salem, MA in Colonial America, and provides some factual rebuttals that challenge the idea of witchcraft, specifically examining the difficult and conformist lives of the Puritans, especially those who experienced violent encounters with the Native Americans. Interestingly, Carradice ends the book with exploring more of the secular “witch hunts” in politics, examining the McCarthy Hearings and some modern uses of the terms, as well as the movement to reclaim witchcraft as a spiritual community connected with nature and knowledge. I really enjoyed this book and the detailed research and history that Carradice supplies to understand the various perspectives and experiences of people from different time periods. I also appreciated his use of both history and literature to examine the attitudes towards witches and those who were different or often did not conform to society’s dominant expectations. I would have liked to learn more about modern witchcraft and how it developed from the 19^th into the 20^th centuries. The last chapter covered a lot of ground, but also left me wanting to learn more about this shift in perspective and attitudes. Nevertheless, I would recommend this book for anyone interesting in history, religion, and social movements.