Gothic/Sci-fi/Vampire/Queer novels by Black authors:
(((Recommendations for AMC's Interview with the Vampire fans!)))
Toni Morrison (1931 - 2019)
Beloved: Set in the period after the American Civil War, the novel tells the story of a dysfunctional family of formerly enslaved people whose Cincinnati home is haunted by a malevolent spirit. The narrative of Beloved derives from the life of Margaret Garner, an enslaved person in the enslaving state of Kentucky who escaped and fled to the free state of Ohio in 1856
The Bluest Eye: The novel takes place in Lorain, Ohio (Morrison's hometown), and tells the story of a young African-American girl named Pecola who grew up following the Great Depression. She is consistently regarded as "ugly" due to her mannerisms and dark skin. As a result, she develops an inferiority complex, which fuels her desire for the blue eyes she equates with "whiteness".
Sula: The Bottom was a Black neighborhood on a hill above the fictional town of Medallion, Ohio, set to be bulldozed at the beginning of the novel for the creation of a golf course. The Bottom originated as an agreement between a white farmer and his Black slave. The farmer had promised freedom and a piece of valley land to his slave should he complete some difficult chores. Upon the completion of the chores, the farmer regrets his end of the bargain, no longer wanting to give up the land. In order to get out of the arrangement, the farmer feigns regret to the slave over having to give him valley land rather than "Bottom" land. The farmer claimed that "Bottom" land (actually located on top of a hill) would be better than valley land because it was closer to the bottom of heaven.
Octavia E. Butler (1947 - 2006)
Fledgling: The novel tells the story of Shori, a 53-year-old member of the Ina species, who appears to be a ten-year-old African-American girl. The Ina are nocturnal, long-lived, and derive sustenance by drinking human blood. Though they are physically superior to humans, both in strength and ability to heal from injury, the Ina depend on humans to survive. Their relationships are symbiotic: the Ina's venom provides a significant boost to their humans' immune systems and extends their lives up to 200 years. However, withdrawal from this venom will lead to the human's death.
Survivor: The novel follows the early contact between the Missionaries, a group of human colonists fleeing a plague on Earth, and the Kohn, intelligent natives of the planet on which the Missionaries have arrived. In particular, the novel focuses on Alanna, the adopted daughter of the Missionaries' leader, as she attempts to prevent the Missionaries' destruction or assimilation at the hands of a dominant local culture. During the course of the novel, Alanna's experiences assimilating and negotiating with the Kohn draw upon her earlier, similar experience joining the Missionaries themselves, and Alanna's ability to interact with the various cultures becomes the key to their survival.
Jewelle Gomez (1948-)
The Gilda Stories: The protagonist starts in 1850 as an unnamed runaway slave in Louisiana. After killing a bounty hunter in self-defense, she is rescued by Gilda, a vampire who runs a brothel named Woodard's. The women at the brothel begin to educate her and welcome her into their family. Eventually, she becomes a vampire and adopts Gilda's name when Gilda chooses to end her own life. The novel then proceeds in historical vignettes through different cities and time periods, highlighting key moments in Gilda's life. She is in California in 1890, Missouri in 1921, Massachusetts in 1955, New York in 1981, New Hampshire in 2020, and the "Land of Enchantment" in 2050.
Linda D. Addison (1952-)
Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes: This collection of poetry received the HWA Bram Stoker award and includes interior illustrations by Marge Simon, full color cover by Colleen Crary, and an introduction by Charlee Jacob. It captures the path between things gone bad and transformation.
L.A. Banks (1959-2011)
The Vampire Huntress Legend Series (Book #1 Minion, book #2 The Awakening): Damali Richards is a successful hip-hop artist by day, but come nightfall, she hunts vampires and demon-predators. Most people believe these creatures are only myth or fantasy-but Damali and her Guardian team know otherwise. Damali is the Neteru, a vampire huntress whose mission is to vanquish evil from the world. In this series of contemporary fantasy and horror, a battle is brewing, and increasingly brutal supernatural murders are happening—and only Damali can stop the evil.
Tananarive Due (1966-)
The Good House: The home that belonged to Angela Toussaint's late grandmother is so beloved that townspeople in Sacajawea, Washington, call it the Good House. But that all changes one summer when an unexpected tragedy takes place behind its closed doors...and the Toussaint's family history—and future—is dramatically transformed. Angela has not returned to the Good House since her son, Corey, died there two years ago. But now, Angela is finally ready to return to her hometown and go beyond the grave to unearth the truth about Corey's death. Could it be related to a terrifying entity Angela's grandmother battled seven decades ago? And what about the other senseless calamities that Sacajawea has seen in recent years? Has Angela's grandmother, an African American woman reputed to have "powers," put a curse on the entire community?
My Soul to Keep: Jessica, a reporter, is in a happy marriage to David, a professor. After close friends and family begin dying around her, Jessica feels David is hiding something. David reveals that he is immortal and has been for centuries. Jessica’s recent investigations into deaths at nursing homes revealed the death of his own daughter, Rosalie. The coinciding tragedies were David’s attempts to keep his past lives hidden and protect Jessica.
N.K. Jemisin (1972-)
The Dreamblood Duology: In the ancient city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Upon its rooftops and amongst the shadows of its cobbled streets wait the Gatherers - the keepers of this peace. Priests of the dream-goddess, their duty is to harvest the magic of the sleeping mind and use it to heal, soothe... and kill those judged corrupt. But when a conspiracy blooms within Gujaareh's great temple, Ehiru - the most famous of the city's Gatherers - must question everything he knows. Someone, or something, is murdering dreamers in the goddess' name, stalking its prey both in Gujaareh's alleys and the realm of dreams. Ehiru must now protect the woman he was sent to kill - or watch the city be devoured by war and forbidden magic.
Helen Oyeyemi (1984-)
White is for Witching: In a vast, mysterious house on the cliffs near Dover, the Silver family is reeling from the hole punched into its heart. Lily is gone and her twins, Miranda and Eliot, and her husband, the gentle Luc, mourn her absence with unspoken intensity. All is not well with the house, either, which creaks and grumbles and malignly confuses visitors in its mazy rooms, forcing winter apples in the garden when the branches should be bare. Generations of women inhabit its walls. And Miranda, with her new appetite for chalk and her keen sense for spirits, is more attuned to them than she is to her brother and father. She is leaving them slowly -Slipping away from them -And when one dark night she vanishes entirely, the survivors are left to tell her story. "Miri I conjure you." This is a spine-tingling tale that has Gothic roots but an utterly modern sensibility. Told by a quartet of crystalline voices, it is electrifying in its expression of myth and memory, loss and magic, fear and love.
The Opposite House: Maja was five years old when her black Cuban family emigrated from the Caribbean to London. Now, almost twenty years later, Maja is a singer, in love with Aaron, pregnant, and haunted by what she calls “her Cuba.” Growing up in London, she has struggled to negotiate her history and the sense that speaking Spanish or English made her less of a black girl. But she is unable to find herself in the Ewe, Igbo, or Akum of her roots. It seems all that’s left is silence. Meanwhile distance from Cuba has only deepened Maja’s mother faith in Santeria —the fusion of Catholicism and Western African Yoruba religion—but it also divides the family as her father rails against his wife’s superstitions and the lost dreams of the Castro revolution. On the other side of the reality wall, Yemaya Saramagua, a Santeria emissary, lives in a somewherehouse with two doors: one opening to London, the other to Lagos. Yemaya is troubled by the ease with which her fellow emissaries have disguised themselves behind the personas of saints and by her inability to recognize them.
Rivers Solomon (1988-)
Model Home: The three Maxwell siblings have kept their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. It wasn’t being the only Black kids in the neighborhood that pushed the children to flee, but rather the strange and inexplicable things that began to happen in the house as soon as they moved in. Was it some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-class? Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned. As adults, the siblings finally got away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents all alone in the house. But when news of their parents' death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to Texas with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family’s past and present, and to find out what happened while they were away.
An Unkindness of Ghosts: Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She’s used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she’d be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world. Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship’s leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot—if she’s willing to sow the seeds of civil war.
... Aaand, that's it for now! Please feel free to reblog with your own recommendations <3 I didn't get to read all of these authors unfortunately, but for those that I didn't, I've seen them greatly reveered by the genre's enjoyers.
(((I sincerely hope that you get to enjoy a far more diverse and politically-aware tale than AR's TVC in the IWTV season 3 interim with these)))
