Review: Out There Screaming; An Anthology of New Black Horror
A collection of stories that include some that send a shiver down your spine and others that focus on the systemic oppression of Black Americans.
Growing up, one of the most memorable ways that my family bonded was over horror shows, stories and movies. Sunday was either reserved for a horror serial like Anhonee or a classic Ramsay film. We even told each other ghost stories during regular family gatherings. So, when I came across Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror, I was immediately intrigued.
In An American Fable, Chesya Burke transports us to the US before the Civil Rights movement. With other black people, veteran Noble Washington is fleeing the southern state of North Carolina on a train bound for Chicago. At Cincinnati, a group of young white men and the conductor demand that the blacks deboard to make room for them. When Washington resists, the racists unleash their wrath on him. As he is being mercilessly beaten, a supernatural intervention helps him escape. A tale of violence and racism, An American Fable also shows that sometimes horror is more to do with the living than the dead.
The Norwood Trouble by Maurice Broaddus features Flora, a little girl living with her civil war veteran father in Norwood, a conservative town in the American Midwest, where the Black community has to follow rules that are unstated. One day, she enters an ice-cream shop in a part of town where black people are not welcome. This results in a vicious lynch mob of white men baying for the blood of the town’s entire black community. Realising the severity of the situation, Flora’s father gathers the elder’s council and prepares to save themselves. While this story might seem similar to the first one, it focuses on systemic oppression, the disenfranchisement of black people and the destruction of their culture.
Apart from these stories with a message, there are others that make a chill run down your spine. Especially scary is Eye & Tooth by Rebecca Roanhorse. Zelda and Atticus, a brother-sister duo in the family business of getting rid of the supernatural, are visiting a remote area in Dallas, Texas. Amid steady rain, they meet Ms Washington, a doll maker, who lives with a small girl, and learn of a strange entity that is leaving animal carcasses in their field. A shocking reality awaits the siblings whose lives are in danger and the reader is jolted by the lightening finish.
In Flicker, LD Lewis creates an entire world of chaos and uncertainty. Kamara loses her ophthalmologist brother, Jay, when a plane crashes into his office even as, for a few seconds on a bright day, the entire world goes unexplainably dark. One evening, still grieving, she is out with two of her closest friends, Wolf and Ami, when a group of faceless men begin killing everyone around. To escape them, the trio drive out of the city towards their cabin in the woods. Several questions cloud Kamara’s mind: who are these men? Why are they killing everyone? What are these blackouts? and most importantly, will they survive? A different kind of horror story, Flicker is about both, the basic instinct of survival as well as survivor’s guilt.
The tales in Out There Screaming are immersive and authentic even as they break the constrictive boundaries of genre. Human beings aren’t unidimensional and the best works highlight the social realities within which we exist. Several of the pieces in this volume focus on the horrors of reality and the impunity with which it occurs. There is also a strong underlying message about the need to decolonize black culture and overcome the demonization and ridicule that has historically been directed at Black Americans.
Dreaming is a crucial part of liberation for marginalized people across the globe. Whether it was Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King Jr, every prominent leader from such communities has stressed on this important aspect. Books like these break away from the monotony of non-fiction and inspire readers to question discrimination and work towards creating a new and just world. And all of that starts with just a dream.
Chittajit Mitra (he/him) is a queer writer, translator and editor from Allahabad. He is co-founder of RAQS, an organization working on gender, sexuality and mental health.
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