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Sometimes it’s just right.
Sometimes the stars align and you are in the right place at the right time to meet someone, to find something, to experience something that will change your life. This change can come in any forms – blatant and stamped on your persona, or as a subtle shift in perspective. Whatever the impact, it something you know when you see (or feel) it; it is an “aha” moment that you grab by the tail before it flits away. Reading R J Joseph has been that epiphany for me. Whether in her academic essays relating to the monstrous feminine or her dark stories that hit closer to home than is comfortable, R J Joseph manages to bring to fore emotions that usually go unsettled, unaddressed, and undiagnosed… sometimes with good reason. Her uncanny ability to find the raw spot and caress it with a salt-coated fingernail is unnerving while at the same time intriguing. Her reflection of Black women in all of our flavors—our joys and pains and the strange intermingling of the two—is terrifying in its poignancy.
The stories in this collection breathe life into the body horror subgenre and dance along the edges of the extreme as they go ‘round the carousel. Complex, visceral, and at times mesmerizing, these stories exist separate from each other but could be viewed as a whole, a mosaic of emotions related to motherhood, the process of aging, social constructs, partnership; the entire unit a kaleidoscopic projection of imagery related to the body feminine that shines a light on what lies beneath, what scurries away from view. Often love is at the root of the reflection, is what is exposed in the bright light, and what we are treated to isn’t always pretty. The love between partners, the love of a mother for her children, unrequited love, what lengths will be travelled to gain someone’s love, even the love of one’s self is laid bare between these pages and readers may find their personal plights there, written in the blood that no one noticed has spilled. R J Joseph’s ability to spin a yarn that the reader can find home in, the way her voice can take up residence in your own head such that seems like you are speaking to yourself, consoling yourself, celebrating, suffering, emboldening, is masterful. You know something is good when you twist in your seat in response, when your palms begin to sweat, when you respond audibly to a sentiment written on the page. This collection of enigmatic and colorful stories hits that way, hard and fast like a sucker punch, but one that your soul saw telegraphed in the ether. The stories are organic, responses to the very real horrors of life they speak of—the ones that are emblazoned on our very souls—and that realism makes them resonate even more… makes them hurt in the most fantastic of ways.
R J Joseph is an author with her finger on the pulse of the feminine experience. Her writing, the absolute purity of the emotions on the page… this is the tone of voice that horror needs to tell Black female stories. I could pick favorites – indeed, I am tempted to, but to do so might color your reading, so I will simply say this: every story brings a vantage point that veers from center, that makes you look inside yourself, that makes you nod you head in collective understanding. Here you will find stories that speak of realities, scenarios, mindsets, and practices that are only whispered about in mixed company – some that may never see the light of day in others. You will be treated to thought processes that may have arisen in you or other women in your life—these thoughts were likely never voiced or acted upon, but they reside still in the recesses of your mind. You will be shown things you’ve never seen before; you will have your attention turned in directions it has never lingered… and you will be frightened by what you see there. And that is ok. It is all by design, this revelatory collection, and you will arrive at the ending unscathed… but not unchanged. From the first story herein the change begins, working its way through your mind, body, and soul.
R J Joseph’s stories provide a catharsis that has nothing to do with the natural course of healing: instead, it traverses another plane where retribution for wrongs is paramount and rest is not granted until it is achieved. This plane exists within all of us and that is what makes her stories eerily relatable… and utterly terrifying.
Read at your own risk. There’s something amazing inside for the brave.
L. Marie Wood
Martinsburg, West Virginia
March 13, 2022
I was on door duty that evening, though we didn’t need a protector. Most passersby tended not to notice our nondescript entryway in the worn-down building. Even those who did notice it were deterred by the dark cloak of misery in our eyes. Despite my queerness and my race, those doorways to my soul, that broadcast unspeakable rot, allowed me kinship with the men inside. Her eyes held the same blackness, despite their light gray color, announcing her as kindred, serving as her password into the club.
There was more to her life story than her eyes, apparently. The foulness of whatever tortured her spirit bubbled just underneath the surface. Her dusky skin shone with determination and…fury. She glided ahead of me up the stairway and into the parlor, removing long white gloves as we walked. Severe burns covered both hands, the puckered skin reflecting the lantern lights.
Even Whitson, the resident playboy, did not set his flirtations upon her. He simply asked her what she was drinking, the same as he did the rest of us. He often told us that he did not seek companionship with fellow sufferers. He said their beds were already too full with them and their demons.
“Bourbon, please.” The rich tones slid from her throat and escaped into the quiet murmur of the fifteen of us. She accepted her glass gracefully and settled into a chair close to the fireplace.
Not forgetting our Texas manners, we quieted down and allowed the lady the floor. I watched her sip from her glass.
“Merci.” She accented the appreciation with a brisk nod to the side. When she gazed back at us, the flames from the fire flickered around the shadows resting beneath the smoky orbs of her haunted eyes. She pulled her bonnet off and placed it on the table next to the chair. Kinky curly strands spilled down to her shoulders and the room gave a collective gasp as the flames caught the sandy tresses. This was the only acknowledgement we gave to her beauty that night.
Without preamble, she spoke in accented tones. “My name is Dominique Aimee Beaulieu and I was born and reared in New Orleans. I had an ordinary childhood, if that as the daughter of a placee` on Rampart street could be called such. Papa and Maman loved me very much and I was a rather spoiled child. They loved each other, as well. I know Papa loved her more than he loved his wife. But he could not stay with us all the time. I once asked Maman why he had to leave and stay away so often and she explained to me that we could not be selfish and keep him all to ourselves. He had another family with whom he had to stay most of the time, but he was always thinking of us.
“Maman had a picture of a beautiful woman with blond hair and she often gazed wistfully at it when she thought Papa and I weren’t looking. I would ask her about the woman, whose features I saw staring back at me in the mirror, albeit through darker skin. Maman would evade the answer until I turned sixteen. When I finally got my answer, I also got the explanation for our way of life.
“This is my sister, your aunt. Papa’s other wife. He met me as he courted her and wanted me for his left-hand wife. She knows about us but cannot acknowledge us publicly. But she must accept our existence. You are of courting age now. Papa will arrange for you to attend The Quadroon Ball next year, to find you a wealthy, white husband. Do not waste yourself frivolously on any colored man. Even if he has money, he can’t elevate your status or guarantee that your children will be free men.
“She grabbed my hand. Just take care to always respect your husband and do his bidding. Love and honor him despite the feelings of jealousy that will come when he takes another to wife. We are the wives they choose, when their other will be chosen for them through making familial alliances. These arrangements are our only way to freedom.
“I didn’t understand why she beseeched me so dramatically on these points. Our system of placage was shocking enough to discover without her telling me I had to accept it, that I had few other choices. I knew nothing of love between a man and woman, but I could see the love between Maman and Papa. If it meant she had to share him with her sister, did that make it of any less value? Did that make me, the product of their left-hand union, any less valuable? Of course, I would love my husband, legally bound or not, because of all the things I did not understand, there was one thing I knew and never wanted to change: my freedom.”
She paused her story here, seeming to look at us for the first time. She turned her fierce gaze on each of us, one at a time, her fellow beasts of demonic burdens. She settled her gaze finally on me, the lone other woman in the group. I did not know how I understood that she knew my secret. My fellow club members knew and did not care. “You understand when I say fighting for one’s freedom is a frantic battle when losing means losing your personhood and often, ...
