It is a delicious revenge story with a twist at the end. He is definitely transformed in ways that Freida can’t anticipate. Her philandering husband gets more than he bargains for when he meets a beautiful woman who gives him the “ride” of his life. The troubled young woman doesn’t want to hear this sage advice and proceeds to call on ‘The Hag’ for help. What is one to do when one loves a philandering husband? We feel for Frieda, the main character when she is warned by ‘Big Mama’, her godmother (who works roots), that sometimes we should let someone go rather than trying to force them to love us. In many of the stories, the main character seeks assistance from the spirits and after receiving the assistance, realizes (often too late) that it came with a high spiritual price tag. This tale involves an uncle undergoing a metamorphosis in order to cleanse the community of a dangerous threat. Buzzard’s Coffin”, a fresh take on zombies, including ones that can restore balance. I truly enjoyed every story in this collection. Indeed, the title of the collection embodies a playfulness about ideas of darkness and light, and personal and official histories. She is interested in how the magical and mundane intersect, especially for women of color and the paths that they travel to find freedom– both physical and psychological. She upends the traditional Hollywood stereotypes of root workers and conjure women. Indeed, one of the gems of Eden’s storytelling is the way she uses language, dialect, and setting to re-imagine folk traditions, hoodoo, and everyday people seeking spiritual assistance. And, their experiences are filtered through the landscape of the South, most often Charleston.
This collection is populated by a variety of diverse characters and cultural reference points that include European American, African American, and indigenous histories. The characters in these stories yearn, love, desire and act in ways that make for compelling fiction.
The challenges of love, especially for women and the price that they are willing to pay for it (whether for a son or lover) is often costly. Themes that recur in the stories include: betrayal, the meaning of death, the price of living, what makes a joyful life, and memory. This collection is a great introduction to Southern gothic horror and is well worth your time. The sense of horror, dis-ease and dread are developed in an entertaining and unexpected way in each story. Royce’s storytelling is layered and dense. The first thing you notice in Eden Royce’s short story collection, Spook Lights: Southern Gothic Horror, is the exquisite attention to language and setting.
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