Edited by Lee Murray & Geneve Flynn
Other RDS Press titles I’ve reviewed
Synopsis:
Almond-eyed celestial, the filial daughter, the perfect wife. Quiet, submissive, demure. In Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, Southeast Asian writers of horror both embrace and reject these traditional roles in a unique collection of stories which dissect their experiences of ‘otherness’, be it in the colour of their skin, the angle of their cheekbones, the things they dare to write, or the places they have made for themselves in the world.
Black Cranes is a dark and intimate exploration of what it is to be a perpetual outsider.
Featuring 14 stories by Nadia Bulkin, Grace Chan, Rin Chupeco, Elaine Cuyegkeng, Geneve Flynn, Gabriela Lee, Rena Mason, Lee Murray, Angela Yuriko Smith, and Christina Sng, and a foreword by Alma Katstu.
Edition:
Hardcover (I’m like 97% sure I bought this one, but honestly – it may have been a review copy)
Hover for Trigger WarningsMy Thoughts:
I’m hard-pressed to pick a favorite story in this anthology. I honestly thought all of them were pretty damned good. But if you held a gun to my head (you monster!), I guess I’d say it was Geneve Flynn’s Little Worm. Maybe. Really, I felt that every entry here was well worth the time it took to read.
And the Foreword by Alma Katsu was actually one of the highlights of the collection for me as well. She has such a straightforward, but nearly lyrical way of writing. I just love reading her words.
Black Cranes isn’t afraid to stray away from horror, either. Although each of these stories has strong horror elements to them, they vary from straight up scary to dystopia, spec fiction, sci-fi and even folk tales and dark fantasy. It truly feels like there is a little bit for everybody here.
The only real commonality (well, besides that they are all written by writers of Southeast Asian heritage) is that every story centers on themes that are common in the lives of Southeast Asian women. To quote Alma Katsu in the foreward:
“Sometimes we’re seen as Geishas, the beautiful, desirable woman who is trained to bend herself to the will of another (usually a man). She exists only to give pleasure. Other times, we’re the Dragon Lady, manipulative and dangerous (but here too, sometimes with a tinge of the erotic. In either guise, we’re not seen as individuals, but as a doll, an empty vessel.”
I don’t see the lie. Unfortunately, I’ve seen the way Western men tend to fetishize Asian women. Their identity is secondary to their “exotic” appearance. The fact that the “Geisha” persona can be foisted upon a woman who is not even of Japanese heritage is…bizarre. But, it’s a thing that happens nonetheless. I know that every culture struggles with the internal roles and expectations of their own, but when you add to that a need to simultaneously struggle with the expectations of a second (and probably very different) culture, I think there is a lot of room for horror and horror-adjacent stories to be born. And I think that Black Cranes provides the receipts for that.
Rating:
This is a really strong collection of unique and varied stories. I highly recommend checking it out.
Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women Edited by: Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn Raw Dog Screaming Press Published: March 23, 2023 ISBN: 9781947879560 Hardcover, E-book Paperback also available from prior printing by Omnium Gatherum
