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Hey everybody, and welcome to the Little Oracles podcast, an oracle for the everyday creative. I’m Allison Arth.
So here we are in October, and I’ve got some big book energy for you all today, some Little Reviews: and I’m talking about a trio of books about crossing over, and hauntings — [whispering] which means we’re talking about ghosts! [laughs] And other undead or supernatural things, too, [chuckles] but before we get into that, as always, check out content warnings before you pick up any of these books, or anything we discuss here on the podcast, because reading should be safe and enjoyable for you. But now, without further crinolines and candelabras, let’s get into the Little Reviews.
So let’s start with a short story collection: Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, in translation by Polly Barton. So this is a series of contemporary feminist retellings of Japanese folktales, most of them ghost stories, and though none of them is particularly scary, I would say, all of them carry that kind of atmospheric oddity — that brushing-the-veil vibe that kind of tingles the spine, you know what I mean? [chuckles] And what I really enjoy about all of these stories isn’t just how they challenge the patriarchy in a really relatable, like, non-academic way (which I think is very cool, and very rare), but also how they portray compassionate action across difference — and by that I mean our living point-of-view characters express compassion toward the spirits and the apparitions they encounter, and in many cases, bring those, you know, estranged, spectral characters very close, and support them in whatever way they can. So it’s this very refreshing approach, in my opinion, and I think it really augments the feminist angle, right? Because if we agree that feminism, even in its gendered name, is an agender philosophy that values intersectionality and strives toward equity and inclusion for all people, then I think Where the Wild Ladies Are really enacts that on the page in its moments of empathy and aid and care between the living and the ghostly or the supernatural in ways that kind of short-circuit the expected: you know, the terror, the attempts to push away — effectively, the othering of a “type” or a “being” or a “manifestation” as separate from oneself.
And, if you’re not getting into it for the feminist angle, for the recontextualization, or the rewriting of the “othering” story, there’s also an annotated index at the back of the book that discusses which Japanese folktale or folktales each story retells, so if you’re into lore and backstory and all of that, you’re in really good shape to seek out more of these Japanese ghost stories and these Japanese folktales. So, overall, a really enjoyable read, something I might roll into my October rotation of creepy, Halloween-y regular reads, things I read every October, like Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson — which is one of our ABC picks for this month — and The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt, and I’m thinking that Where the Wild Ladies Are might be a good palate cleanser for the times when those stories are just a bit too intense. So if you like that spine-tingling storytelling, and you also like a good feminist angle.
Now let’s turn to the book in this trio that didn’t really work for me, and that’s This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno. Now, I know a lot of people are, like, obsessed with this book, [chuckles] and they love how it depicts the grieving process while simultaneously sending up classic horror tropes — brushes with the uncanny, the unsettling, the unknown; stuff like that. And, you know, I spent a considerable amount of time in my teens reading the full canon of Stephen King up to that point; one of my favorite movies of all time is The Shining; I’m no stranger to the John Carpenters and the Roger Cormans of the world — I’m not, like, a horror newb or whatever, but for some reason, all the references and, you know, close-quarter lampoons of horror imagery and character experience were just too pointed for me; they were just too aware, and that self-awareness held me at arm’s length from the narrative and the narrator — the person experiencing a really acute loss in this case — and, yeah, his feelings of isolation and separation are a huge part of the arc, so this could be a meta approach; you know, making me feel the way he feels kind of a thing, but, honestly, it was just kinda wall-to-wall big-scare tropes: monstrousness, body horror, supernaturality. And, for me, it really lacked the creeping, dreadful, human-driven horror of something like the work of Mariana Enriquez, or Samantha Hunt (like I just mentioned), or Samanta Schweblin, or even, like, The Road by Cormac McCarthy. And maybe this is just me and my preferences showing their whole tuchus, as it were, [chuckles] but for some reason I want my horror to be more streamlined, I guess. [laughs] I don’t want the casting about, and the kind of cherry-picking, you know, end-of-The-Wizard-of-Oz, “And you were there, and you, and you” — it’s just too fuzzy and flailing for me, and I lose the point of view, you know what I mean?
But, you know, maybe I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind when I read it; maybe I need to revisit it, or one of you needs to tell me what I missed. I mean, maybe each of the tropes represents a stage of grief? Like, I don’t know; I’m– I– I just am really trying to figure out why I didn’t like this book when so many other people did. [laughs] I mean, it is a page-turner; it’s got some good freaky imagery, like that one moment in the movie the Babadook, and if you’ve seen that movie, you know exactly what I’m talking about. So, I don’t know; if you’re into books that mesh grief and grieving with horror tropes, then maybe check out this one. And if you do, send up a flare, tell me what you thought about This Thing Between Us.
Now, on the flipside, I wanna talk about Bad Cree by Jessica Johns, which shares a lot with This Thing Between Us, in that it’s a story of someone reckoning with loss and guilt and grief, and there are supernatural elements that emerge throughout the story, but unlike This Thing Between Us, Bad Cree really worked for me. It was this fulfilling, page-flipping, heart-racing read — just a really satisfying horror romp — but at the same time, it’s tempered with this really beautifully wrought family drama that captures, you know, the joy (and the claustrophobia, at times) of being part of a close-knit family that’s steeped in its own traditions and rituals — you know, the food traditions; the traditionally roles each member of the family kinda slips into when everybody gets together; the decades-old inside jokes that have taken on this kind of representational meaning that’s more about a literal shared language than recalling an actual event — stuff like that. So while the lines between dreams and reality, and otherworldly power and personal agency, are blurred, and there’re some genuinely goosebumpy moments in this book, there’s also this safety net of family that undergirds the whole story. And I think that’s why it works so well, and why the weird feels weirder, and scares are scarier: it’s that contrast between this clear familial connection and the supernatural elements threatening to break it apart.
And I’m not gonna go into the plot, obviously; this is a very plot-driven book, but it’s got family, it’s got unexplained phenomena, it’s got ghouls and ghosts; it’s got these wonderful, sympathetic characters, and a dynamic range of highs and lows for them. It’s just got a lot of heart.
And it was just plain enjoyable, in the way that a really taut thriller or a twisty melodrama is just plain enjoyable — I’m thinking of, like, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, or The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner. So my Dad says, “It doesn’t have to be fun to be fun,” [laughs] — and he’s not talkin’ about books, necessarily — but I think that sentiment totally applies here, because this book reminds me of watching a show like Yellowjackets, or a movie like The Descent: you know, great pacing, great character drama, great creeping terror. But at the same time, we’ve got this really intense, serious, moving content in this package that’s just visceral; that has that frisson, and that spark of “What’s gonna happen next?”, and it makes it a thrill ride even while it’s a think-piece. So, yeah; Bad Cree, two thumbs way, way up, as they say; a very haunted read indeed.
And there we have it; thanks for being here. If you’re haunted by the Little Oracles podcast, help it haunt more people [laughs] by sharing an episode with somebody, leave rating or a review wherever you listen. For more big book energy and creativity content, you can always follow along on Instagram (at) little oracles and the blog at little oracles dot com. And, as always, take care, keep creating, and stay divine.
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