Chloe's Not Scared

Horror, graphic novels, and nonfiction you can sink your teeth into.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of the new historical horror movie Sinners, one of my new favorite horror movies, coming to streaming tomorrow. While watching, I pictured director Ryan Coogler drawing inspiration from so many of my favorite books and movies. I was glad to see many of these authors and filmmakers acknowledged in his public thank-you letter. There are so many topics packed into this relatively short film, but hopefully you’ll find your next favorite read. I also hope you’ll stick around for my resource guide at the end, for further reading.

Historical Horror

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

In Jim Crow era Florida, Robbie gets sent to the Gracetown School for Boys after kicking a white boy to protect his older sister. Robbie can see haints and there are a lot of them at the reformatory. While this book has a paranormal twist, Due also infuses her own relatives’ history with the stories here. The Reformatory is one of the best books of this century, no exaggeration.

This Cursed House by Del Sandeen

In 1962, educator Jemma Barker leaves Chicago to teach privately at The Duchon estate in New Orleans. The Duchon family seem a bit strange, but Jemma is about to find out that the house holds many secrets. Can Jemma help break the Duchon curse before it’s too late?

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle

In this cosmic horror novella inspired by Robert Johnson, Charles Thomas Tester lives in 1920’s Harlem with his aging father. When he comes face to face with a businessman who offers him a deal, Tom’s life is about to change. LaValle seems to be in direct opposition of HP Lovecraft’s racism through this book.

The Fervor by Alma Katsu

I love a book where we follow four different characters and slowly see their lives intertwine in surprising ways. A minister, a Japanese American woman and her daughter, and a reporter from Nebraska all converge to figure out the root cause of a mysterious disease sweeping the Japanese internment camps in 1944 Idaho. This book is full of references to Japanese folklore, including a spider spirit.

Vampire Horror

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

When a manuscript is discovered in the walls of a church, a story is revealed of a Lutheran pastor, a Native American vampire named Good Stab, and the descendant of the pastor who’s just trying to get tenure. This is the book that Sinners made me think most about, and this is– as of writing– my favorite book of the year. Jones masterfully creates a historical horror as well as a vampire tale.

Vampires of el Norte by Isabel Cañas

I find this book way more of a romance than a horror and I think it’s labelled “horror” just because vampires are lurking out in the desert. Nena and Néstor are childhood sweethearts when a terrible monster and miscommunications rip them apart. Set against the Mexican-American war, this love story is one for the ages.

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

Beginning in 1850 New Orleans, The Gilda Stories follows a young girl as she escapes her life as an enslaved person and is sheltered by vampires. We jump across history and time to see how her un-dead existence plays out. We also see how the world changes and specifically, how the world treats Black gay women in the future. If you’re looking for queer Black vampires, The Gilda Stories is the OG.

Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma

Desperate to find the vampire who is responsible for the disappearance of her sister, Kidan must infiltrate Uxlay University, a school where humans and vampires coexist. This dark academic vampire tale is Tigest Girma’s debut novel with a sequel coming out this year.

Graphic Novels

Bitter Root by Sanford Greene, Chuck Brown and David F. Walke

During the Harlem Renaissance, the Sangerye family fight (and cure) monsters infected by hate. But even within the family, there are arguments about if the monsters should live or die. Apparently this is one of Ryan Coogler’s future projects, so start reading Bitter Root today!

Octavia Butler’s Kindred adapted by Damian Duffy and illustrated by John Jennings

This graphic novel is based on the time traveling drama Kindred by Octavia Butler, in which an interracial couple gets transported to the Antebellum South. The story translates perfectly to a graphic novel format.

Jook Joint by Tee Franklin

Tee Franklin’s Bingo Love was one of my favorite graphic novels of recent years. But in Jook Joint, Mahalia runs a juke joint in 1950s New Orleans, where men must keep their hands to themselves or suffer the consequences. Jook Joint is a deeply personal story that Franklin pulled from their own traumatic expierences.

Killadelphia written by Rodney Barnes, art by Jason Shawn Alexander, coloring by Luis NCT and lettering by Marshall Dillon

When a small town beat cop returns to Philly to bury his father, he is shaken by the state of the city: poverty, unemployment, corruption and, of course, vampires. But is this new undead army a coincidence or a political move? I have yet to sink my fangs into this book, but I can’t wait.

Magical Realism

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

If you loved the moment in Sinners where Sammie’s music transcended space and time, The Water Dancer is the book for you. This pre-Civil-War South story follows Hiram Walker who possesses special powers to transport things and people over time, powered by the magic of storytelling.

Conjure Women by Afia Atakora

Told in parts before and after the Civil War, Miss May Belle and her daughter Rue are the enslaved people of a plantation and the resident healers/midwives. After the Civil War, they stay on the property, but lies and mysteries unravel surrounding the master’s daughter Varina and a baby with a caul. Conjure Women was my favorite read of 2020 and it deserves more love.

Ours by Phillip B. Williams

Conjurer Saint brings formerly enslaved people to a magical town simply called “Ours.” Ours is magically concealed from the outside world so as Saint fills the town, others join and cracks appear in this utopia. Set over four decades, Ours is a spectacular read.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

This award-winning novel follows an enslaved person, Cora, who escapes via the Underground Railroad, an actual rail system in this alternate history book. Colson Whitehead can do no wrong, in my opinion.

Nonfiction Topics

If Sinners inspires you to learn more about the Jim Crow South, the Great Migration, Chinese-Americans in the Delta, the Choctaw people, Robert Johnson and the crossroads, hoodoo and conjure, or Irish immigration, there is a book for you. Again, I recommend looking at my resource guide at the bottom of this post for a more comprehensive look into specific topics. For me, I was most interested in Annie’s spiritual practice, the characters of Grace and Bo Chow, the significance of Remmick’s Irish music and of course Sammie’s transformative Blues music. So, I chose to highlight nonfiction titles on these subjects.

Mules & Men by Zora Neal Hurston

Zora Neal Hurston, author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, completed and wrote an auto-ethnographic study of African American spirituality in Eatonville, Florida (Hurston’s home), Polk County Florida, and New Orleans, Louisiana. Though it’s not a comprehensive account of hoodoo and conjure, it’s centering the people who participate in these practices. I knew Hurston from her fiction and was happy to see that she wrote this book as well.

Chopsticks in the Land of Cotton: Lives of Mississippi Delta Chinese Grocers by John Jung

Author John Jung grew up in Macon Georgia above his family’s laundry business, the only Chinese residents in the city. After retiring from teaching at California State University, Professor Jung wrote four books about Chinese Americans living in the South. This is his third, specifically focused on Chinese grocers in the Delta who served Black farmers in the area, which is a major plot point in Sinners.

Wayfaring Strangers: The Musical Voyage from Scotland and Ulster to Appalachia by Fiona Ritchie and Doug Orr

This is a love letter to the Scotch-Irish who immigrated to America and ended up in Appalachia, and the music and cultural traditions that they brought with them. Packed full with interviews and mini histories of musicians and movements, this is the encyclopedia on Appalachian Scotch-Irish music. This is part of my own family history and I can’t wait to dive in. Plus, Fiona Ritchie used to host an NPR show on Celtic music, so she knows what’s up.

Blues People by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)

Much like Hurston’s work, I was familiar with Baraka’s other work (particularly in the theater), but I was intrigued about this book on musical scholarship as well. Because I was familiar with his work, I knew that this book about the blues would contextualize the musical influence in African American culture and American society as a whole. Also like Hurston’s work, this book centers the humanity behind the music. Written in 1963, the language can be a bit dated, but the book is still informative.

Resources

The African American Intellectual History Society published a Sinners Movie Syllabus.

Reviewing the Record published a comprehensive resource and reading list by Trey Walk. I heavily used this resource to find the nonfiction books on this list.

Kahlil Green’s massive resource guide titled Everything You Missed in Sinners on their site History Can’t Hide is phenomenal.

Reactor Mag has a ton of great articles about Sinners but my two favorites are Let’s Talk about the Irish Music in Sinners by Leah Schnealbach and What to Read After Watching Sinners by Alex Brown (which has a lot of books that I left out due to space).

Chicago’s own Black-woman owned bookstore Semicolon Books provided a list of Sinners-inspired reads that you can purchase on Bookshop.org, a site that gives their profits to the independent bookstores.

NPR’s Music Editor Sheldon Pierce wrote a great article about the blues in Sinners.

The town of Clarksdale Mississippi, where Sinners was set, does not have a movie theater but a screening of Sinners did happen recently, with visits from cast and crew. Heartwarming!

Chicago is mentioned only briefly in Sinners, but if you’re a Chicagoan like me, you have so many Black history and culture resources at your fingertips. My favorite is Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection, the largest African American history and literature collection in the Midwest. It is available at the historic Woodson Regional Library, a regional branch of the Chicago Public Library. If you’ve never been to Woodson, this is the year to do it! Woodson Regional Library is celebrating 50 years of serving the South Side of Chicago.

There are so many interesting and comprehensive articles about Sinners. The bookstagram world has been intensely Sinners-driven for a bit, so hopefully I can keep the momentum going. Please use this guide as inspiration to search for something different or #OwnVoices. Preserve Black History!