6 books to get you started with Black horror, classic and new
I recently spoke with Tananarive Due for a profile focused on her innovations in Black horror fiction, including her latest novel, “The Reformatory.†While her work is an excellent entry point into the subgenre, your reading need not end there. Due and I talked about several books — old and new — that we’ve read and loved in the category. A note for the horror-averse reader (which I thought I was until now): The work on this list is less about the ghosts and monsters out in the world than the family histories and traumas within.
Tananarive Due’s new novel, ‘The Reformatory,’ is the latest in a career of Black horror fiction. It began with an upbringing steeped in civil-rights activism.
Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror
Edited by Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams
Random House: 400 pages, $30
This stellar collection of recent Black horror fiction features Due’s “The Rider,†a story based in part on her mother’s and aunt’s civil rights activism. But stay for equally compelling stories by speculative fiction greats including Nnedi Okorafor, N.K. Jemisin, Nalo Hopkinson and P. Djèlà Clark; pioneering scholar Chesya Burke; and newcomers such as Lesley Nneka Arimah and Erin E. Adams — whose debut novel, “Jackal,†is another Due pick for the Black horror library.
Toni Morrison, the author, essayist and winner of Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, famously encouraged would-be writers to take action.
Beloved
By Toni Morrison
Vintage: 352 pages, $17
Morrison’s bestselling 1987 novel is based on the real-life story of Margaret Garner, who killed her daughter in 1856 rather than have her returned to slavery — but then it ventures into the realm of the ghost story. There are plenty of arguments for and against including Morrison’s literary classic in the horror genre. Nonetheless, it’s on Due’s list, and mine. Read (or reread) it with fresh eyes and decide for yourself.
The Changeling
By Victor LaValle
One World: 464 pages, $18
The anxieties and fears of parenthood are writ large and scary in LaValle’s 2017 fantasy/horror epic, in which a used-book dealer and new father suffers a horrifying loss before diving into New York City’s boroughs-turned-nightmares to find and heal his family. Throw in LaValle’s gorgeous prose and trenchant observations on racism, social media and bookselling and both Due and I were all in. Winner of a fistful of book awards, it is also one of Time’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time; read it, then watch the AppleTV+ series.
Victor LaValle’s novel ‘Lone Women’ reinvents the western, adding horror and a Black woman pioneer protagonist — with help from the women in his own life.
Fledgling
By Octavia E. Butler
Grand Central: 320 pages, $17
While Butler is best known for her work in the broader speculative fiction genre, Due recommends the late author’s final novel, which centers on Shori, an ostensibly young amnesiac, whose ravenous hunger for blood leads to a startling revelation. A fascinating tale about bigotry and otherness wrapped in a vampire story, “Fledgling†is one of Butler’s very best.
The Other Black Girl
By Zakiya Dalila Harris
Atria: 368 pages, $17
This whip-smart take on workplace racism and Black self-esteem signals its ambitions in an epigram attributed to Due: “Black history is black horror.†When I reviewed the book in 2021, I felt the mystery overtook the horror. On a second reading in preparation for watching the Hulu limited series, I’m leaning into the horror: “Get Out†with styling gel.
The former editor explains how she turned her acclaimed publishing world satire into a Hulu series, while learning to ‘divide’ herself from her heroine.
The Spite House
By Johnny Compton
Tor Nightfire: 272 pages. $28
In this Gothic haunted-house debut, Eric Rose and his daughters are trying to outrun a mysterious family curse when they meet an eccentric Texas woman willing to pay a huge sum if they will stay in Masson House and record their encounters with the supernatural. A recommendation from Due, whose own take on the trope in “The Good House†was met with high praise, puts this February 2023 release at the top of my TBR horror stack.
Woods is a book critic, editor and author of the Charlotte Justice mysteries.
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