Friday Links: A Murder Of Crows & A Local Check-In Edition
"Now that we're all carrying our secrets together, my breath comes easier." - Jessica Johns, 'Bad Cree'
A word of caution before we begin: this week’s book features discussion of the Wheetigo, the cannibalistic former human monsters from Indigenous North American lore. I have seen it written (read: I saw a Twitter thread years ago) that colonizers seeking out Wheetigo stories is looking for knowledge not meant for us and has the potential to end badly. These are stories to hold at an arm’s length. Don’t go looking for things not meant for you. You know yr man the Shipwrecked Sailor is more of an empiricist than most horror writers, but I firmly believe in not pushing things. I wrote about Haitian zombies one time and have avoided the subject since. Now, I’m taking a book written by a First Nations woman and published by Anchor Books—this is obviously a story offered to the public. All I’m saying is tread carefully with this and other stuff.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
A book that did everything I wanted it to. A book about the power of community—family, yes, but more than that, community. A book that’s wall-to-wall moodiness and terror but with enough love and light to keep it from being one-note, but not the kind of love and light that makes things unbearably saccharine. No, this is a book that keeps you scared, even when you do reconcile with your sister. Because—are the crows still following you? Are you sure you’re not going to bring any feathers back from the dream world? This book will have you wondering. I’m talking, of course, about Bad Cree by Jessica Johns.
This is a tight novel, all the fat trimmed off and fast-paced without relying on cliffhangers or cheap tricks. Johns simply says what needs to be said, makes every detail important, and gets out. The cumulative effect is mystery and horror, details being uncovered as the threat ramps up, but neither element diluting or bogging down the other.
Another trick that makes the mystery fun? It’s a coming home narrative for narrator Mackenzie, and the course of her reconnecting with her family only deepens the myth the story’s built upon and untangles pieces of the puzzle. The family scenes really give an extra layer that you don’t have in, say, The Ring. Not only is Mackenzie grappling with whatever haunts her, not only is she learning something about being Cree, but there is real, down-to-earth struggles with family members. Secrets kept, or things left unsaid without knowing the hurt you’re causing. Grappling with being far away from your hometown, missing out on your relatives’ lives. I know all about that stuff and I don’t think a murder of crows is following me.
One last element I want to highlight, but I need to be vague, to avoid spoilers. A big element of why What’s Haunting Mackenzie is haunting her is because of something she had no control over. Sure, Mackenzie (and her relatives, to some extent) do not-great things and thus leave themselves open to this kind of supernatural attack. But I love horror where the real external threat comes from the characters being out of control. Like The Rental—sure, there were cracks and fissures already in that friend group, but the evil was beyond. Yes, fiction is most interesting when characters have agency. But there’s something about being a person in the 21st century that makes you feel like most important things are out of your hands. This novel speaks to that.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? We’re nearing and nearer to spooky season, and these are all local-related links. Here’s Satan and a local band.
Forgot to link to this earlier this summer, but I thought it was cool: here’s Jerome “Rome J” Johnson at The Triibe with a writeup marvelously titled “Black folks are taking over Lake Michigan with two big boating events in Chicago this summer.” Obviously these events already happened, but as a sucker for anything Having To Do With Boats But Not Rich White Guys, I wanted to shout it out.
Community groups have restored a basketball court in North Lawndale, NaBeela Washington writes in The Triibe. The official policy of this blog on “public basketball courts” and “good things happening in Chicago’s underserved neighborhoods” is that they are both good and there should be more of them. Interesting to hear young people’s memories of the pandemic and Lightfoot admin so prominently include the removal of rims and backboards. Rahm closed schools, Lori took away parks. “Don’t be the mayor who takes beloved shit away” feels like an easy path to follow, and yet (looks mournfully at CTA and Dorval Carter still having a job).
It would be dishonest if this blog’s sunny demeanor was not punctured every once in a while. It would especially be dishonest if this blog’s sunny love for Chicago was not interrogated. This is not a perfect city, and we have one of the worst, most unhelpful police departments in the entire world. Caleb Dunson at Chicago Reader has the story of Timothy Jones, a college student who was sentenced for a murder that a Chicago cop committed. Well, Jones ran a red light, Officer James Sivicek did the same, the cop car slammed into another car, killing a woman named Jacqueline Reynolds, and Jones got a 28-year sentence. Never mind that Sivicek probably violated the CPD’s vehicle-pursuit policy, never mind that a high-speed chases seem like they’re pretty pointless, never mind that there was no need for the cops to be called to where they were called before the car chase broke out. Anyway, our prisons are filled with cases that are just stupid escalations like this, people who absolutely did not need to have their lives ruined the way prison does for the stupid decisions they made. That’s one of the main points of Didn’t Nobody Give A Shit What Happened To Carlotta, and it’s the main takeaway, for me, from Caleb’s story about Timothy.
Hey, speaking of our merciless police state! Robert Vargas in The Triibe offering some valuable perspective on the city council’s idiot decision to overturn one of the few wins of the Johnson admin so far: “Scientific racism and the decision to renew ShotSpotter”
Let’s cheer back up. Here’s another I meant to get to earlier: Love this interview
did with Danny Espinoza, founder of Santo Chorizo. Look dudes, sometimes there’s nothing to say besides I like reading an interview with an unpretentious, gregarious chef. And I love a shoutout to Michoacán, the state responsible for all the good Mexican food in Chicago.
What’re you still doing here? Wanna hear a local band?
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Mackenzie works at Whole Foods, and had to fight her boss for time off to go home. She tells him she didn’t take time off when her sister died, and he still takes some convincing. Stand up to your boss this weekend, if you need to. It’s not the policy of this blog to start fights when don’t need to be fights. But if need to be fights? Let this blog lift you.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris