Writers listen.
Writers observe.
Writers research and use their skill with language and their gift of imagination to assimilate themselves into other people. They create characters and situations outside their spheres of experience.
Some might say Grady Hendrix has no right to attempt to convey how a woman goes through childbirth. Or how they faced oppression in the shameful history of the United States of America. I beg to differ.
Witchcraft For Wayward Girls is the latest novel from horror fiction guru Grady Hendrix. It deals with a touchy subject, and one that is highly relevant in today's terrifying political climate.
It's 1970 and fifteen-year-old Fern is pregnant and sent by her parents to a home for disgraced girls in a steaming July in Florida. Only her name isn't Fern. To de-humanize the girls, they are not allowed to use their real names. Instead they are given names of flowers. It's a bullshit way to bequeath false joy on them.
It's always hot, the food is awful, the staff are harsh disciplinarians. The girls only have each other, until a meeting with a bookmobile librarian offers them hope.
The librarian promises deliverance and appears to have strange powers. She could be their salvation. Or she might be the vehicle to their damnation.
I've been a Grady Hendrix fan ever since I read My Best Friend's Exorcism back when it was first published. I have had the privilege to watch him grow from an enormously entertaining pop writer to a novelist worthy of the highest critical acclaim.
My favorite Hendrix is How To Sell a Haunted House. It touched my heart in places few other books have managed to reach. I believe, however, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is his best book to date. The rich language, the depth of character, the ingenious way the novel is structured show Grady Hendrix at the top of the horror field. His books elevate the genre higher than books that merely try to disturb readers. There's moral complexity, heartbreaking emotion, intellectual satisfaction.
There are grueling scenes in Witchcraft For Wayward Girls. One of the most powerful sequences is a difficult and painful birth delivery outside a hospital. I was more disturbed by another delivery, this time inside a hospital. The mother is treated like human filth by the staff and is bullied and humiliated during the entire birthing process. It's appalling and all too believable.
In addition to the horrifying way young women are treated in Witchcraft For Wayward Girls, there are brutal scenes of supernatural carnage. Grady delivers the goods horror fans are looking for without resorting to cheap shock tactics.
Going back to my original question at the beginning of this review, I think if a writer attempts to portray marginalized people to stereotype or use the characters in any derogatory way, it's wrong. If someone attempts to do so in ways to try to understand, to illuminate injustices in the world, to try to put themselves vicariously in the shoes of oppressed people, I think it's an honorable thing. If they do it right. Grady Hendrix gets it right. But then he seems to get everything right.
Written by Mark Sieber
Writers observe.
Writers research and use their skill with language and their gift of imagination to assimilate themselves into other people. They create characters and situations outside their spheres of experience.
Some might say Grady Hendrix has no right to attempt to convey how a woman goes through childbirth. Or how they faced oppression in the shameful history of the United States of America. I beg to differ.
Witchcraft For Wayward Girls is the latest novel from horror fiction guru Grady Hendrix. It deals with a touchy subject, and one that is highly relevant in today's terrifying political climate.It's 1970 and fifteen-year-old Fern is pregnant and sent by her parents to a home for disgraced girls in a steaming July in Florida. Only her name isn't Fern. To de-humanize the girls, they are not allowed to use their real names. Instead they are given names of flowers. It's a bullshit way to bequeath false joy on them.
It's always hot, the food is awful, the staff are harsh disciplinarians. The girls only have each other, until a meeting with a bookmobile librarian offers them hope.
The librarian promises deliverance and appears to have strange powers. She could be their salvation. Or she might be the vehicle to their damnation.
I've been a Grady Hendrix fan ever since I read My Best Friend's Exorcism back when it was first published. I have had the privilege to watch him grow from an enormously entertaining pop writer to a novelist worthy of the highest critical acclaim.
My favorite Hendrix is How To Sell a Haunted House. It touched my heart in places few other books have managed to reach. I believe, however, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is his best book to date. The rich language, the depth of character, the ingenious way the novel is structured show Grady Hendrix at the top of the horror field. His books elevate the genre higher than books that merely try to disturb readers. There's moral complexity, heartbreaking emotion, intellectual satisfaction.
There are grueling scenes in Witchcraft For Wayward Girls. One of the most powerful sequences is a difficult and painful birth delivery outside a hospital. I was more disturbed by another delivery, this time inside a hospital. The mother is treated like human filth by the staff and is bullied and humiliated during the entire birthing process. It's appalling and all too believable.
In addition to the horrifying way young women are treated in Witchcraft For Wayward Girls, there are brutal scenes of supernatural carnage. Grady delivers the goods horror fans are looking for without resorting to cheap shock tactics.
Going back to my original question at the beginning of this review, I think if a writer attempts to portray marginalized people to stereotype or use the characters in any derogatory way, it's wrong. If someone attempts to do so in ways to try to understand, to illuminate injustices in the world, to try to put themselves vicariously in the shoes of oppressed people, I think it's an honorable thing. If they do it right. Grady Hendrix gets it right. But then he seems to get everything right.
Written by Mark Sieber
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