The Ancestors

October 13, 2008
Talented African-American authors Banks (The Shadows
), Massey (Don't Ever Tell
) and Due (Blood Colony
) explore ancestral roots in intriguing horror novellas. Banks puts a time-travel twist into “Ev'ry Shut Eye Ain't Sleep,” in which antique dealer Abe Morgan helps a friend, Rashid Jackson, protect Aziza, Rashid's granddaughter, from “the shades” after Aziza inherits her grandmother's house. In Massey's “The Patriarch,” a crime novelist brings his fiancée to Coldwater, Miss., to introduce her to his mom's kinfolk, but runs afoul of a powerful family secret. Due's “Ghost Summer,” the best of the trio, also works as a YA novel. Davie Stephens, who's determined to become a 12-year-old ghost buster, and various family members find themselves haunted by a 1909 cold case in Graceville, Fla. All three contributors successfully combine scary themes with rich historical detail.

January 15, 2009
Three novellas by best-selling authors explore the supernatural while borrowing from African American ancestral legends. In Banks's "Ev'ry Shut Eye Ain't Sleep," a haunted Gulf War veteran discovers his destiny in the obligations of his past. Brandon Massey's "The Patriarch" traces a young writer's voyage to his family's Mississippi home in search of secrets he may not be able to believe. "Ghost Summer," by Tananarive Due, tells the story of two children haunted by ghosts seeking justice. The old-fashioned ghost story gets a much-appreciated makeover here. A good selection for most fantasy and African American fiction collections.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2008
Three well-known thriller writers employ the novella to depict people learning more about their roots than any sane person would want to know. The undertone all three share is cautionary: listen to your elders before you try anything to the slightest degree dubious. In Banks Evry Shut Eye Aint Sleep, a young attorney prepares to dispose of his grandmothers property, only to discover that it was much more valuable and necessary than she could have imagined. In Brandons Masseys Patriarch, a young writer returns to the family home in Mississippi to find an old feud coming back to life and to learn that not all of his forebears were fully human. In Tananarive Dues Ghost Summer, ancestors haunt the nights of two children, which leads to the revelation of an old wrong. Fun to read and good models for nascent genre practitioners.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)