Hunting Ku Kluxes in the End Times : Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark (Review)

A/N: This review contains spoilers for Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark. This is your spoiler warning.

A badass monster-hunting trio, a matriarch with magic and six-eyed monsters sound like a fun fantasy read, right? But what if the monsters being hunted are Klu Kluxes and the setting is Macon, Georgia in 1922?

Ring Shout is an award-winning, historical-horror novella set during the Prohibition in the United States of America and follows Maryse Boudreaux and her companions as they fight monsters and stop the world from meeting a certain doom.

Maryse and her fellow fighters- Sadie Watkins, sharpshooter with a sharp tongue, and Cordelia Lawrence or Chef, the incendiary expert who once fought with the Harlem Hellfighters regiment; are a part of the resistance movement against the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK is a well-known right-wing, extremist group consisting of white supremacists. Except in their version of reality the Ku Kluxes can turn into six-eyed monsters that wreak havoc on the mortal world. Recruited by the Gullah magic wielding Nana Jean, the three women track down and kill these monsters and peddle illegal alcohol to fund the monster hunting campaigns. But there’s a mysterious danger looming at the horizon that threatens their very existence.

Maryse is running away from a past filled with grief, having lost her family in a Ku Klux attack and is on a path of vengeance as she wields a magical blade. The sword draws its powers from the grief and fear of people sold as slaves and the African kings and chieftains who sold them. The blade also becomes the reason that draws in a fearsome enemy called Butcher Clyde, who is on a mission to mass recruit Ku Klux Klan members for a sinister agenda. The story follows her journey of overcoming fear, guilt and the trauma of being the only survivor from the massacre that occurred in her family home and finding a way to destroy an enemy that can’t be defeated- whatever the cost may be.

It’s narrated in first person from the perspective of Maryse. All the characters are well-developed with fascinating personalities. Sadie with her irrefutable shooting skills and questionable foul-mouth despite being raised by a grandfather who was a pastor, is a force to be reckoned with. Chef, who earned her nickname because of her ability to cook up explosives is hinted at being queer. She fought in the Second World War and came home a changed woman, bringing back a piece of war with her. Nana Jean practices root magic with her coven of ring-shouters and her bae Uncle Will. Molly is the resident self-taught scientist at the farm and dissects the Ku Kluxes with her apprentices, to understand their weaknesses. Emma Kraus is a writer researching the Ring Shout culture whose book excerpts are included at intervals and add depth to the rich history that the author is building from.

P. Djèlí Clark is an amazing writer and incorporates history in such a subtle way with mentions of real facts in between the horror-fantasy narrative. The story includes references to Thomas Dixon’s book ‘The Clansman’ and the movie -The Birth of a Nation by D.W Griffith that glorified the first iteration of KKK. And also the inadvertent rise of the second iteration it caused in actual history as it did in the book. The book was enlightening while being funny and terrifying at the same time. I highly recommend this to anyone who is into monster-hunting fantasy and found family tropes. And also if you’re a fan of body horror and historical horror.

A/N: I’ve had Ring Shout on my TBR list on Goodreads since January 2022 and I’m so glad that I finally got to read it. The hype was totally worth it. I can’t wait to read more from the author, they’re a stellar writer.

If you wanna watch the silent movie- The Birth of a Nation, it’s available on YouTube which I don’t recommend watching because it’s a 3 hour long racist piece of art but I do highly recommend reading articles regarding the history of KKK, Jim Crow Laws and the Prohibition for more context. It personally helped me understand the text better.

Thank you for reading the third installment in my ‘Nebula Novella’ series where I read and review novellas which have won the Nebula Award in the past few years. The next one on my list is a much anticipated read and I’m so excited to finally read it. I’ve been trying to start this book for years and now nothing can stop me. *insert crazed maniacal laughter ending in nervous giggles*

To read the previous installment, here’s my take on And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed.