These tales of things that go bump in the night also pay tribute to the Choctaws’ preservation of their culture.
A chilling collection of stories about the tricksters and other beings of Choctaw lore who refuse to be forgotten.
When homicide detective Monique Blue Hawk thinks she’s encountering a deer in “Kashehotapolo: The Deer Man,” she makes a startling discovery: “It stepped into the clearing. Her jaw dropped. She looked lower and with a start realized that the buck did not have a deer head. She saw an old man’s face, furred like a deer, wrinkled and passive.” Kashehotapolo is one of the entities in the Choctaw pantheon, and Choctaw historian and writer Mihesuah explores the interactions of humans with these various beings in tales blending folklore with ghost stories, detective fiction, and other genres. Some are set in the years before and after the Chahtas, or Choctaws, were forced to leave their homelands and migrate west in the 1830s. Mihesuah explains in a note how the supernatural creatures in their belief system followed them west, too. Some, like the shampe—a version of Bigfoot—seem frightening but are harmless, while others are truly menacing. That includes the shape-shifting Elus Crow in “The Cornfield,” a story that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Stephen King collection. Alive for centuries, Crow, who’s an evil opa, or horned owl, preys on lost travelers who come upon his remote farm. His “helpful” directions to the main road always send them into one of his witch holes, the perfect place to keep them until he’s ready for his next meal. Some creatures, like the Little People, seem motivated more by mischief than malevolence. Others demonstrate a desire to protect Choctaw heritage, as one unfortunate young professor learns in “Tenure” after falsely claiming Choctaw lineage to further his academic career. The author’s years of research richly inform these tales, and she keeps the superlatives to a minimum—her subject matter is fantastic enough without them. Surprisingly, many of these stories resolve in satisfying ways, if not with an outright happy ending, and the author says in an introduction that “composing fictional stories about real-life histories allows me to create the endings that I want to see, and the act of facing scary cosmological creatures with a keyboard also gives me some control over what I fear.”
These tales of things that go bump in the night also pay tribute to the Choctaws’ preservation of their culture.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9780806194677
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Univ. of Oklahoma
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
Haig’s positive message will keep his fans happy.
A British widow travels to Ibiza and learns that it’s never too late to have a happy life.
In a world that seems to be getting more unstable by the moment, Haig’s novels are a steady ship in rough seas, offering a much-needed positive message. In works like the bestselling The Midnight Library (2020), he reminds us that finding out what you truly love and where you belong in the universe are the foundations of building a better existence. His latest book continues this upbeat messaging, albeit in a somewhat repetitive and facile way. Retired British schoolteacher Grace Winters discovers that an old acquaintance has died and left her a ramshackle home in Ibiza. A widow who lost her only child years earlier, Grace is at first reluctant to visit the house, because, at 72, she more or less believes her chance for happiness is over—but when she rouses herself to travel to the island, she discovers the opposite is true. A mystery surrounds her friend’s death involving a roguish islander, his activist daughter, an internationally famous DJ, and a strange glow in the sea that acts as a powerful life force and upends Grace’s ideas of how the cosmos works. Framed as a response to a former student’s email, the narrative follows Grace’s journey from skeptic (she was a math teacher, after all) to believer in the possibility of magic as she learns to move on from the past. Her transformation is the book’s main conflict, aside from a protest against an evil developer intent on destroying Ibiza’s natural beauty. The outcome is never in doubt, and though the story often feels stretched to the limit—this novel could have easily been a novella—the author’s insistence on the power of connection to change lives comes through loud and clear.
Haig’s positive message will keep his fans happy.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593489277
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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