As featured on Black Gate May 10th 2022:
NEW TREASURES: RAINBRINGER: ZORA NEALE HURSTON AGAINST THE LOVECRAFTIAN MYTHOS BY EDWARD M. ERDELAC
Rainbringer: The Symphonic Heavy Metal of Weird Fiction
Edward M. Erdelac has been writing entertaining weird
fiction for over a decade. He pushes boundaries. One of his first spotlights
on Black Gate was in 2014 regarding his Merkabah
Rider (concerning the 19th-century Hasidic Jewish mystic turned
gunslinger). Erdelac also wrote an entry in Tales of Cthulhu
Invictus mentioned in my recent 2022 review of Richard
L. Tierney’s Simon of Gitta tales (this connection resonates since
both Tierney and Erdelac extended the mythos of Robert E. Howard’s magical Ring
of Set… more on that below). The author clearly has a knack for extending the
landscapes (dreamscapes?) of modern fiction.
With Rainbringer: Zora Neale Hurston Against The
Lovecraftian Mythos, Erdelac invites us to follow a fictionalized version
of Zora Neale Hurston throughout the North American Twentieth Century. On the
face of that description, you may not be hooked. Like most people, I presume, I
had no idea of who she was…. or why she may present a wonderful lens into
cosmic horrors. Read on! She’s a strong, witty survivor who is uniquely
qualified.
Rainbringer reminds me of splendid, symphonic
(or operatic) Heavy Metal music. It combines the literary foundation of solid
historic fiction (arguably Classical music) with the wild experiences of
intense adventure (“\m/”…. that’s the emoticon for “rock on” BTW). Cozy mystery
readers may be lured into reading Rainbringer for its historic
influences, but they will have their minds blown when cosmic demons are
revealed to be meddling with humankind. Likewise, readers of classic weird
fiction (i.e., Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Robert Howard, etc.) will be treated
to an extremely fresh take: a heroine in charge, and African American woman to
boot! This review covers the Contents, Zora, Excerpts, and more.
Back Cover Blurb
“The oaths of secrecy she
[Zora Neale Hurston] swore, and the terrifying physical and emotional ordeals
she endured…left their mark on her, and there were certain parts of her
material which she never dared to reveal, even in scientific publications.” –
Alan Lomax
ZORA! She traveled the
1930’s south alone with a loaded forty four and an unmatched desire to see and
to know. She was at home in the supper clubs of New York City, back road juke
joints, under ropes of Spanish moss, and dancing around the Vodoun peristyle.
Her experiences brought us Their Eyes Were Watching God, Mules And Men, Tell My
Horse, and Jonah’s Gourd Vine. But between the lines she wrote lie the words
unwritten, truths too fantastic to divulge….until now.
LEAVES FLOATING IN A
DREAM’S WAKE, BEYOND THE BLACK ARCADE. EKWENSU’S LULLABY. KING YELLER. GODS OF
THE GRIM NATION. THE SHADOW IN THE CHAPEL OF EASE. BLACK WOMAN, WHITE CITY. THE
DEATHLESS SNAKE. Eight weird and fantastic stories spanning the breadth of her
amazing life. Eight times when she faced the nameless alien denizens of the outer
darkness and didn’t blink.
ZORA! Celebrated writer,
groundbreaking anthropologist, Hoodoo initiate, footloose queen of the Harlem
Renaissance, Mythos detective.
So, Who Was Zora?
Paraphrasing from the author’s introduction best explains:
The Zora Neale Hurston
depicted in this book is not the real person, of course. The real Zora Neale
Hurston was born in Eatonville, Florida on January 15th, in (according to her,
at various times in her life) either 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, and
1910.
Except she wasn’t. She was
actually born in Notasulga, Alabama on January 7, 1891. Her birth year changed
as it suited her purposes. She needed to apply for school, wanted to impress a
younger man, whatever. She was somehow always vivacious and gregarious enough to
sell her claims.
As to her hometown, you
can’t blame Zora for claiming Eatonville. It was among the first all-black
incorporated towns in the United States, and her father was once elected its
mayor, helped write its laws, and was pastor of its largest Baptist church.
Combined, these elements surely instilled in her a fierce sense of independence
and pride that caught a number of her contemporaries later in life, black and
white, by complete surprise…
In New Orleans, gathering
material on Hoodoo for a book, she was inducted into the mysteries of the
magical folk practice by Luke Turner following a grueling three day ritual. She
wrote Langston Hughes; “I am getting in with the top of the profession. I know
18 tasks, including how to crown the spirit of death, and kill.”
Zora was many things in
the course of her life; anthropologist, author, teacher…she was probably never
a Mythos detective.
Historic & Weird Ingredients
Rainbringer‘s realistic milieu hosts characters such
as Zora Neale Hurston, her white benefactress Charlotte Osgood Mason, the
musician Asadata Dafora, and even Orson Welles. They roam New Orleans, Harlem
during its Renaissance, and even a trip to Honduras’s famed Monkey Temple. Both
Voodoo (the religion) and Hoodoo (the associated spiritual practices) are
prominent, in addition to the timely governmental program Works Progress
Administration (WPA). The Voodoo Macbeth focus in the “King Yeller” chapter was
outstanding as it fictionalized the 1936 production of William Shakespeare’s
Macbeth led by Orson Welles. Plenty of references to slavery abound, as well as
classic literature references (i.e., Lysistrata, the story of a woman who led a
movement to deny men sex to end the Peloponnesian War) ground us in reality.
Fantasy is firmly rooted in weird fiction (which also
flourished in the 1930’s). Author Robert W. Chambers’s The King
in Yellow (1895) mythos is integrated firmly here, especially
interwoven with the Voo Macbeth production. From Robert E. Howard (creator of
Conan), the Serpent Ring of Set is treated with an extended mythos (originally
appearing in the 1932 “The Phoenix on the Sword”); Akaan creatures (echoing
those from Solomon Kane’s battles in “Wings in the Night” published in 1932);
also from REH, we experience elements from his King Kull (i.e., the serpent men
from Valusia). And then there are the ever-present Howard Phillips Lovecraft
cosmic deities, such as Yig, Nyarlathotep, Tsathoggua; Erdelac almost made me
believe that the Dreamland of Kadath was reachable via Zora’s touring.
Chronicles of Zora’s life in Chapters
A concise introduction reveals the protagonist’s history.
Then the chapters chronicle her bizarre experiences from the 1920’s through the
1960’s. The last chapter “The Deathless Snake” is unexpectedly emotive and
wild.
- Zora:
A Brief, Inadequate, and Likely Inaccurate Summation of A Life
- 1925:
Leaves Floating In A Dream’s Wake
- 1928:
Beyond The Black Arcade (published first in Heroes Of Red Hook,
Golden Goblin Press, 2016.)
- 1935:
Ekwensu’s Lullaby (published first in Beyond Red Hook, Golden
Goblin Press, 2016)
- 1936:
King Yeller
- 1937:
Gods of The Grim Nation (published first in Dread Shadows In
Paradise, Golden Goblin Press, 2016)
- 1940:
The Shadow In The Chapel of Ease
- 1947:
Black Woman, White City
- 1960-1975:
The Deathless Snake
- Afterword
Crazy Melee Excerpt
This woman anthropologist
could give Indiana Jones a run for his money. She handles a 0.44 Magnum
just fine. And wrestles with elder gods!
There was a flood of light
then, and silhouettes peered down at me in the hold. The shrill cacophony of
that indescribable call flooded my numb limbs with nervous strength, and I
sprang from the stinking bowels of that boat like something vomited up. I latched
onto one of those peering figures, digging my nails into the flesh beneath the
long, greasy hair, stifling the shriek of surprise with my own mouth, locking
onto the face of my oppressor in a ravenous kiss, biting, chewing through the
hairy lips, tearing the tongue from between the desperately locking teeth,
driving that white man to the wet deck and pushing my thumbs through his neck
so blood bubbled and coursed up over my hands like the birth of a virgin
spring. I was not alone. All around me my people tore through our captors,
twisting their heads off with the chains that bound them, seizing hatchets and
knives and returning them to their hated owners edge first, going over the side
with them into the marsh and resurfacing alone if at all.
Trippy Dreamscapes Excerpt
Twentieth Century history is breached by dreams and violent
entities.
I was standing in some
colorless, gray place, in a field of dead grass on which the gray, heavy clouds
seemed to roll, slowly dying, pierced now and again by bare, twisted trees and
broken stones. There was no sound of wind or rustle of beast, but there was an
incessant lapping, as of water, which my dream-self then navigated by.
Far across that water, which seemed to be a vast lake, the
suns slipped from sight, and I saw the strange yellow limned spires of a gray,
quiet city, the architecture unknown to me. I knew somehow that these tall,
alien skyscrapers were the tombstones I had been expecting all along, markers
of a population long dead if it had ever been at all. No watercraft moved to or
from its unseen harbor. No bleat of traffic or noise of any passersby came to
me across the water, only the incessant, dull lap of the black lake on the gray
shore. But then I heard a flapping sound, as of many banners streaming, and I
saw the first flash of color; mustard yellow streams of ribbons tied to every
inch of a nearby dead tree. They fluttered madly in every direction, flaring
like stagecraft fire, though no wind blew and they had not been there before…
Rocking from the topmost skeletal branch, pierced through
its eyelet, there hung a queer, inexpressive, whey-faced mask, the appearance
of which filled me with such loathing I retched.
Inspirations Revealed
Paraphrasing from the Afterward, we learn the context for
Erdelac’s muse and genuine passion.
Zora was one of a kind, and as I worked my way through her
other folklore book Mules and Men, her short stories, her essays, through
Moses, Man Of The Mountain and her personal letters, I came to love her ardently.
I was enraptured by her biographies, knocked silly by her quotations and the
bold and brassy way she came at life.
Well, the how came with Oscar Rios’ Golden Goblin Press
putting out a call for Caribbean-themed Lovecraftian horror.
I flipped through Wade Davis and my Tell My Horse,
and found a quote by Zora that kicked it all in motion; “Research….is a seeking
that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell
therein.” Writers of Lovecraftiana hone in on the word ‘cosmic’ like bees to
pollen…
So I started thinking of Zora as the type of woman who
wouldn’t flinch at the Old Ones; an occult scholar more in the Robert E. Howard
mode, and one who could be honor bound to keep secrets…
What made me, a white man, think I could write one of the
most beloved and important African American women of the Harlem Renaissance?
I’m afraid any drawn out, carefully mulled-over answer I can concoct will end
up sounding like a stereotypical display of white privilege at best, so I’ll
just keep it to this; Simply and truthfully, I love Zora Neale Hurston.
Edward M. Erdelac
Edward M. Erdelac is
the author of the acclaimed Judeocentic/Lovecraftian weird western series Merkabah
Rider, Conquer, Rainbringer: Zora Neale
Hurston Against The Lovecraftian Mythos, Andersonville,
Monstrumfuhrer, The Knight With Two Swords, and the compiler of Abraham Van
Helsing’s papers (in Terovolas).
In addition to short story appearances in dozens of
anthologies and periodicals, he is an independent filmmaker, an award-winning
screenwriter, and sometime Star Wars contributor.
Born in Indiana, educated in Chicago, he now lives in the
Los Angeles area with his family.
