Sour Cherry
by Natalia Theodoridou
I could write an essay on why I dislike the term “literary horror,” but it marries two things that readers instantly recognize — exceptional writing and chilling situations — and that makes it the perfect descriptor for SOUR CHERRY (Tin House, 297 pp., paperback, $17.95).
The story begins with Agnes, a woman hired as a wet nurse by a wealthy family after the death of her own son. After “the boy,” as Agnes calls him, or “the little lord,” grows up and stops breastfeeding, Agnes stays on as caretaker of the quiet, mysterious child. Years go by — the boy grows; his mother disappears; a blight strikes the local crops and then vanishes, only to return even stronger years later. Through it all, Agnes is there, filling the space of the missing mother and watching her charge’s journey into manhood, marriage, lordship and eventually exile.
But that’s only the first part. Eventually, the narrative switches focus from Agnes to the little lord and his wife before changing again to chronicle the life of Tristan, the little lord’s own son. The changes don’t stop there, but I won’t spoil the rest.
“Sour Cherry” is a murder ballad sung in a dark room — it’s slow, haunting and strangely beautiful. Overall, this novel is about how inner darkness plagues generations of men of a peculiar family, and the impact that has on everything around them. And while the cursed lineage trope can be clichéd, Theodoridou’s lyrical prose takes otherwise disposable lines and turns them into poetry: “A boy raised by wolves, his father a tree, his mother a fiction.”
Although Tristan’s story is longer than it needed to be and the changes in voice and breaking of the fourth wall can feel awkward and unnecessary, this hallucinatory novel is a sad, violent, horrible delight.
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng
by Kylie Lee Baker
Baker’s BAT EATER AND OTHER NAMES FOR CORA ZENG (Mira, 298 pp., $28.99) opens with a horrifying scene — Cora Zeng is standing on a New York City subway platform with her sister, Delilah, one afternoon in April 2020, during the terrifying early days of the pandemic, when a white man wearing a mask yells a racial slur and pushes Delilah onto the tracks. The incoming train decapitates her, and Cora is left screaming.
Then the story flashes forward a few months. The police never found Delilah’s killer, and they blame Cora — they say she should have looked harder. And that’s just one of Cora’s problems. Besides her grief and anger, Cora is broke, insecure, living with a religious aunt and working as a crime scene cleaner, scraping away human remains for money. Oh, and now she’s seeing Delilah’s ghost.
At work, every job seems to involve murdered East Asian women. And at each crime scene, there are dead bats in the vents, in the tub and, rumor has it, inside the bodies. Cora and her co-workers suspect a serial killer is responsible but no one pays attention when they try to report this. Meanwhile, Zhongyuan Jie, the hungry ghost festival, is approaching. It’s said that during the festival, the gates of hell open and ghosts visit earth. With her own haunting intensifying, Cora must learn a lot before the ghost festival starts in two days.
This book operates on two levels. It’s a fun novel about three friends hunting for ghosts, cracking jokes and eating dumplings. It’s also a dark and uncomfortable read about heartache, racism and thinking you’re no more than the “echo of a dead person.” Easy to read and gloomy even when there’s humor, this is an important and timely tale about life as an “other” in chaotic times.
Beasts
by Ingvild Bjerkeland
Bjerkeland’s BEASTS (Levine Querido, 120 pp., paperback, $17.99), translated from the Norwegian by Rosie Hedger, is a bare-bones postapocalyptic novel about two young siblings trying to make their way to their father after the end of the world.
The story takes place amid calamity — big hairy monsters with large claws showed up and ended civilization as we know it. Thirteen-year-old Abdi and his little sister, Alva, were with their mom when the beasts emerged; their dad was away on a work trip. When the monsters kill their mother, Abdi and Alva set out to reunite with their father. But a world full of monsters is no place for two kids traveling alone.
“Beasts” is a quick, enjoyable read, but it doesn’t break any ground or make significant additions to the postapocalyptic subgenre that boasts classics like “Alas, Babylon,” “The Stand,” “Moon of the Crusted Snow” and “The Road.”
Bjerkeland’s writing is beautiful at times, as when Abdi finds a teddy bear and hugs it, a poetic image of a boy desperately holding on to his innocence. But it’s also monotonous, and that minimizes its emotional impact. Even at the end, when Abdi thinks about feeling his father’s “strong embrace,” his voice feels emotionless. Sadly, by the time the ending — easy, predictable, full of hope — rolls around, the story is already fading from memory.
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