Blood Kin by Steve Rasnic Tem
My rating: 4/5 cats
i like reading books where i think to myself “this would have been a great x-files episode…” and this one certainly qualifies.
this is a sweet little piece of southern gothic/horror which splits itself between the 1930s and the present day, using visions and psychic/empathic powers to bind the two.
it takes place in rural-rural appalachia, and is the story of the gibson family: they of muddy melungeon ethnicity, magical gifts, and some backwoods madness. the now-elderly sadie is telling her story to her grandson michael who is a solitary and displaced man returned home to care for the ailing sadie after his own failed suicide attempt. as she tells her story, her gift (and his own) makes the distance between the past and present collapse, and the events become almost real to michael; he lives inside of them and is depleted whenever sadie pauses in her tale. but the story must be told to the end, because there is a danger coming, and it is beginning to stir in a buried iron crate under a thickening snare of kudzu.
it’s got all the things you need to get membership in the southern gothic club: ghosts, snake-handlers, gruesome murders, incest, inscrutable old-timers who hold all the secrets, moonshine, poverty and prejudice, religious fervor, all of that. but it also has a good story under all that window-dressing, a tale of long-awaited justice and a family legacy of hatred and fear building up generation after generation until a final explosive sequence may or may not put everything right.
oh, and did i mention snake handlers??
this has some of the best snake-scenes i have ever read. oh, pentacostals, i do not understand your ways…however, if there is ever a religious group that offers red panda-handling, drop me a line, okay?? i’m not even fussy about the rest of the belief system—tell me who to hate and i’ll do it, make me marry 40 people, tell me i have to give up zippers cuz they’re too flashy, just let me hoist red pandas above my head for a couple hours and we’re good.
come here, imma handle you…
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