My November reads included witches, vampires, and ghosts but they also included plenty of very real horrors from history and the specters that haunt our society today. The bookshelf offered plenty of remarkable characters and stories, but I was glad for the chocolate from the leftover candy bowl to go with it.  

First up was A Dowry of Blood by S. T. Gibson. I read it as I think most vampire novels should be enjoyed… on a rainy afternoon safe in my apartment. Unlike Stoker’s original Dracula who is a powerful monster, Gibson offers readers the version we are more accustomed to after years of Buffy and Twilight. Dracula is handsome but also manipulative and powerful. It’s a quick read that covers a bit too much for its size – centuries of history and a multitude of complicated relationships are tackled in short chapters. But it left me wondering why our culture finds it so easy to fall in love with vampire stories when they often feature creatures like Gibson’s.

Next was Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen which was an amazing combination of historical detail and timeless narration. Our main character, and the accused witch, Katharina Kepler could be a woman from any era who decides to live her life with a bit of independence. Katharina is older and has been tolerated in her town with her odd life… until a neighbor turns on her and everything changes. Galchen’s story also tackles war and social pressure and grief through several different character perspectives. Katharina tells much of her story, but she cannot read or write, so we also get the perspective of friend and neighbor Simon (whose role is elevated both by the book and by the court within the book because he is a man so in their eyes her guardian.). We also get excerpts from the testimony of everyone in their community pulled into the trial. I’m always impressed when an author can tie a great deal of history right to the present and make a character that is both grounded in their time and yet speak with total clarity to me, here and now. Galchen has achieved this and so much more. If you need a last-minute Christmas gift, this would be a winner.

I followed that strong book with yet another amazing read, The Trees by Percival Everett. One of the best things I have read all year, Everett’s text is a satire of so many things and yet deeply serious. This is a strange mystery – where two men, one white and one Black, keep showing up dead only for the Black man to disappear from the morgue and show up at the next crime scene. It doesn’t take long to tie the first few dead men to the lynching of Emmett Till but soon the number of dead rise and the question leaves rural Alabama because America’s history of racial killings is everywhere. As this mystery unfolds, we follow around a number of cops – first a set of foolish racist local cops, followed by experienced but amusing city officers who have been partners for years (and who you could picture starring in an HBO series together) and later a federal agent both impressive for what she has achieved and burdened by being in a system worth hating. Everett takes aim at policing, academia, rural America, and big cities. He makes dark jokes about our factories and diners and traveling for work and cable news and hate groups, but the power of Everett’s novel becomes clearest when he stops the story just to list the names of those murdered on the streets… the names we have and only the start of the ones we are missing. Everyone should read this book – both because it’s a remarkable example of satire and because we need to address the past if we have any hope of a future in this country.

After such a dark satire, I shook thinks up with a modern British detective story. The Glass Room by Ann Cleeves is one of the Vera Stanhope novels and was my first foray into this particular mystery universe. Vera is an older, experienced detective who is rough around the edges and has issues with her past, but is very good at her job. Of course, this is the most common description of famous fictional detectives except for one thing: Vera is a woman. Because of this change, I loved both the mystery and the detective characterization. Vera isn’t a young, beautiful ingénue constantly having to prove herself or trying to balance her work life and her home life. Her life is being a detective. Cleeves takes it a bit further because it’s Vera’s male co-worker who struggles between the job and home and has a confusing flirtation with a suspect. To top it off, the mystery was solid. You were able to follow the suspects and the grand finale is a satisfying twist based on interviews and going through paperwork, rather than just detective magic. I’m thrilled to have a new detective series to add to my list.

The grand finale of the month was a modern classic: The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez rethinks the vampire novel in every possible way, starting with the fact there are no older brooding men wooing young teenager girls. Gilda, our main character and our main vampire, is a lesbian who is able to build an independent life where all of the tropes of vampirism are turned around. Gilda doesn’t murder; she feeds without death and leaves the humans with comforting dreams. She isn’t mysteriously wealthy; she invests and leaves emergency funds in multiple places. She forms a family, both with humans and other vampires.  Each chapter is set at a different point in time and Gomez pushes things further by going into the future. It’s a fascinating read, especially if you grew up reading vampire novels, to see Gomez play with genre.

So, another month and we’re almost at the end of our 2023 reading journey. I hope everyone else gets a little extra time in the next few weeks to read, hopefully by a nice warm fire with a beverage of your choice. (Bonus points if you have a pet to nap next to you!)