When my friend Kate Maruyama, author of Harrowgate, showed me this book, I immediately bought a copy. It was then promptly lost in the TBR piles littering my home. When I found it again recently, I couldn’t read it fast enough.
At times surreal and at other times completely frightening, these tales are rooted in reality. That’s what makes them terrifying to this Becky. And so absolutely fucking awesome.
Using the backdrop of life on Heliotrope Drive and Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles, Sconiers brings home powerful truths about life as a woman of color by using horror. It’s one of the best uses of the genre, like Get Out. Several of the stories gutted me or creeped me out, but probably my favorite was “Here Come the Janes.” This story is about a black woman who catches her white work colleague sneaking into her home to steal her hair. As the Janes morph into dangerous, inhuman hair devourers, Sconiers unleashes the character’s humiliation and rage over the incessant invasion of her personal space and objectification. While I cannot begin to relate to being either the toucher or touchee, I felt the cathartic blow to the solar plexus in the telling. Same with tales such as “Happy Black Bitches Club” and “The Death of Common Women.”
Sconiers gives us many openings for empathy and connection in these sometimes terrifying tales. I deeply relate to her feelings of loneliness in Los Angeles expressed in a lot of the stories. I moved here myself after my divorce, and I was single for 8 years. I suspect a lot of single creative women can relate. Themes of invisibility, sexual addiction, and healing also thread through her universe. But this Becky (me) didn’t need to relate to appreciate the stories. This Becky wanted to dive into the world that Sconiers wanted me to experience and come out changed by the thunder, whispers, and fear rustling within the walls. I can’t promise the same for everyone, but I loved every minute of it.
Escape from Beckyville on B&N