The Monsters We Defy
by Leslye Penelope
Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted June 24, 2024
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This is a combination of historical fiction and fantasy, and it excels at both. In the afterword, the author says she originally intended to write a fantasy based around the Harlem Renaissance. Then she came across an article about a 17-year-old black woman, Clara “Carrie” Minor Johnson, who had shot and killed a white policeman when he and several others broke into her father's house, where they both were hiding under a bed. The event occurred on July 22, 1919, during the Washington, D.C. race riots, which began after inflammatory articles about black violence were printed in THE WASHINGTON POST!. That link is to an article behind a paywall, so if you can't access it but are interested in other information, click here, here, and here. Carrie and her father Benjamin Johnson were both wounded, and both were arrested. Charges against him were dropped, but Carrie was convicted of manslaughter. I am sure what most intrigued Penelope was a second trial, in which a new judge accepted Carrie's plea of self defense, and all charges were dropped on June 21, 1921, after she had been held in jail nearly two years.
The novel begins on the day of Clara Johnson's birth, in a wagon heading north toward DC. It was an en caul birth, meaning her mother's water never broke, the baby was still encased in the amniotic sac. Folklore said such a rare occurrence foretold of good luck, even magical abilities. From an early age Clara could sense and see spirits, as well as having visions of what other people were doing even though she was not near them. She was plagued by entities, which we later learn she called the Grays, that frightened her. Her constant fits and shouts, which were her way of trying to protect herself from the Grays, to drive them away, led to her mother leaving them when Clara was six. The bulk of the book is set in 1925, with Clara working as a typist for Carter G. Woodson's Association for the Study of African American Life and History, publisher of The Journal of Negro History. Woodson is an historical figure, the only person whose parents were enslaved in the United States to have obtained a PhD in history. His personal assistant is in a few scenes: Langston Hughes. Others appearing briefly are: William Hansberry, a history professor at Howard University, whose niece was the poet/playwright Loraine Hansberry; another poet/playright, Georgia Douglas Johnson, whose husband had been appointed Recorder of Deeds for DC by President William Howard Taft; John Whitelaw Lewis, the first black man to create a bank, the Industrial Savings Bank, and who financed the Whitelaw Hotel, named in honor of his mother. Others mentioned in passing are filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, along with actors associated with him, including Paul Robeson and Lorenzo Tucker. The latter is out of place chronologically. His first film was in 1928, so Clara would not have been able to see his "new film" in 1925. Everyone else seems to fit the time and place. Well, maybe not W.E.B. Du Bois, but I'll explain that later.
I highlight these people to place Clara within the time period, and to emphasize the fantasy is connected to many other elements of the black experience in America. I have no idea if the real Clara Johnson ever met any of them, but it is a certainty that some of them would have heard of her. Beyond Clara's ability to see spirits, there are others who have made 'deals with the devil' so to speak. Clara calls the entities that make the deals Enigmas. Hers is The Empress. Israel Lee, a musician she meets, made his deal 'at the crossroads' with The Man in Black, which I don't think means the devil incarnate, but perhaps what other legends call Papa Legba. Israel's cousin, Jesse Lee, also had a deal with an Enigma, but I can't recall its identity. These deals involve both a Trick and a Charm, but the way they are described I thought those should be reversed. Clara already had her Trick, which was being able to see spirits, even communicate with some of them, particularly her grandmother, Mama Octavia. Her Charm was something else entirely, but we don't find out what it is until later. She said on several occasions she neither wanted to reveal what her Charm was, she never wanted to use it again, and felt no one should ever be burdened with such a Charm. However, it was what got her out of jail. Israel's Trick was his ability to enrapture an audience with his music, but his Charm kept them from appreciating him as a person. Jesse Lee made his deal to wipe out the traumatic memories from his service in Europe during World War 1. He could wipe the memories of others, the downside was his Charm wiped out other people's memories of him, most tragically the woman he loved. Every time she saw him was like the first time.
Not all the fictional characters have Tricks and Charms. Clara's roommate Zelda for one. She is an albino African-American, whose mother had sold her to a carnival when she was young. She later signed on with a circus and learned acrobatics, along with martial arts skills. Zelda provides what little comic relief is to be found within the story. The mystery which compells Clara and others to use their Tricks involves people who have become zombie-like, quite a few of them going missing. One of them is 14-year-old Samuel Foster, who worked part-time in the office with Clara, along with other jobs with a butcher and a print shop. Clara is relatively well-known, not just for her run-in with the law, but also as a consultant, using her scrying abilities to help people, but never charging a fee. She has a rival, later turned ally, Uncle Nazareth, more of a conjurer. Clara witnesses two of the 'Afflicted' shuffling across Vermont Avenue toward the small park at 10th and U Streets, where they are accosted by two men and thrown into the back of a delivery truck. She loses sight of them quickly. Later, she and Israel see others hauled off in another truck, but Israel thinks he knows where they may be headed since all of the sign on the truck had not been scraped off. They go to a warehouse, formerly a stable, later a garage. They are able to sneak inside, where they find the kidnapped people working on stills. This was during prohibition, so that makes sense, but what was causing the people to be hypnotized or otherwise controlled. Samuel Foster is there, but Clara cannot get him to respond to her questions. I'm getting ahead of the story a bit, with a few other characters yet to be mentioned, so I won't say how Clara and Israel get out of the warehouse. They meet up with others they have been working with to plot the strategy of rescuing the 'afflicted,' but first they have to figure out how they are being controlled, and how to counteract that.
Clara's Enigma, the Empress, says they are being controlled by a magic ring, and she wants Clara to steal the ring and give it to her. The ring is worn by Madame Josephine, a famous (but fictional) black opera singer, who when her voice started failing her had married a gangster. The Empress assures Clara that Josephine is not the one controlling the ring, so it must be another Enigma who occasionally 'Embraces' Josephine. How to get the ring off her finger is the major problem, since it has already killed one person who attempted it. The main reason the disappearances are not big news is that the 'afflicted' are all poor blacks. But what happens when Josephine, or the Engima, targets the Luminous Four Hundred, the elite black families of DC, during a soirée at the Whitelaw Hotel? And how can Clara and her cohorts hope to get into such a prestigious event? Well, remember I mentioned W.E.B. Du Bois? Not the man himself, but another of Clara's partners, Aristotle, whose Trick is being able to transform himself into anyone he wishes, but of course he has a Charm too. No one would ever be able to see him as his true self. There are a few minor lulls in the action, mostly while Clara struggles with her Trick, and worries about her Charm, which had caused her to be distant from others, afraid she would be tempted to use it. But most of the story is fast-paced, exciting, and perilous, with very high stakes for all involved. Clara eventually discovers she has more powers than she ever imagined, none of them connected to her Charm, which she now never has to worry about again.
I only recently became aware of Leslye Penelope. Under that name she has published this and one other novel, which came out earlier this month. But as simply L. Penelope she has at least sixteen novels, and has been in several collections and anthologies. Maybe a future book will be set during the Harlem Renaissance. I can assure you this will not be the last of her I will read. Highly recommended.
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