"Know that whatever becomes of us, my heart will beat for you |
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The House of Erzulieby Kirsten Imani Kasai
2/21/ 2018 from Shade Mountain Press ISBN 978-0-9984634-1-4, paperback, 275 pp., $24.95, The House of Erzulie tells the eerily intertwined stories of an ill-fated young couple in the 1850s and the troubled historian who discovers their writings in the present day. Emilie St. Ange, the daughter of a Creole slave-owning family in Louisiana, rebels against her parents’ values by embracing spiritualism, women’s rights, and the abolition of slavery. Isidore, her biracial, French-born husband, is an educated man who is horrified by the brutalities of plantation life and becomes unhinged by an obsessive affair with a notorious New Orleans voodou practitioner. Emilie’s and Isidore’s letters and journals are interspersed with sections narrated by Lydia Mueller, an architectural historian whose fragile mental health further deteriorates as she reads. Imbued with a sense of the uncanny and the surreal, The House of Erzulie also alludes to the very real horrors of slavery, and makes a significant contribution to the literature of the U.S. South, particularly the tradition of the African-American Gothic novel. READ AN EXCERPT |
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Praise for The House of Erzulie
"Kirsten Imani Kasai makes the macabre beautiful. She crafts a story that explores superficial scares while also delving into more complex topics like generational trauma and the horrors of slavery. The House of Erzulie makes you wonder what truly haunts our history, and how, if ever, we can escape it." Foreword Reviews
"The House of Erzulie is a poetic exploration of the mysteries of love and desire; Kasai gives voice to the specters haunting the silences in marriages, and the horror that grows from secrets kept between husbands and wives. Intriguing and compelling at every turn, the novel confronts an awful truth about slavery and brings to light a little discussed fact of African American history. Provocative and enlightening, this novel is a pleasure to read." Maisha L. Wester
"In The House of Erzulie, Kirsten Imani Kasai blurs the edges between dream and reality, madness and magic, beauty and brutality, darkness and desire, with an unflinching eye and lush, deeply visceral language. This book had me mesmerized, completely under its spell." Gayle Brandeis, author of The Art of Misdiagnosis and The Selfless Bliss of the Body
"From the first present day voice of Lydia Mueller, to the authentic, wonderful voices/letters of Emilie, her husband Isidore, Creole plantation slave owners in the 1850s, Louisiana- each voice drew me into the complex realities of that time. From sensuality/passion to the stark cruelties of slavery, Kasai weaves her word magic from the first page to the final page. You will enter this world, and emerge changed—that kind of magic." Alma Luz Villanueva, poet, short story writer, and novelist
"I GOBBLED UP this novel. Kasai teases the reader, luring them alternately through foreboding and hope. A tour guide into madness, she leads you almost all the way down the rabbit hole, leaving a light to find your way out. Her phrasing is so luxurious I wish this were a tapestry I could run my hands along." Gayle Feallock, former editor at Harcourt, Inc.
"Kirsten Imani Kasai makes the macabre beautiful. She crafts a story that explores superficial scares while also delving into more complex topics like generational trauma and the horrors of slavery. The House of Erzulie makes you wonder what truly haunts our history, and how, if ever, we can escape it." Foreword Reviews
"The House of Erzulie is a poetic exploration of the mysteries of love and desire; Kasai gives voice to the specters haunting the silences in marriages, and the horror that grows from secrets kept between husbands and wives. Intriguing and compelling at every turn, the novel confronts an awful truth about slavery and brings to light a little discussed fact of African American history. Provocative and enlightening, this novel is a pleasure to read." Maisha L. Wester
"In The House of Erzulie, Kirsten Imani Kasai blurs the edges between dream and reality, madness and magic, beauty and brutality, darkness and desire, with an unflinching eye and lush, deeply visceral language. This book had me mesmerized, completely under its spell." Gayle Brandeis, author of The Art of Misdiagnosis and The Selfless Bliss of the Body
"From the first present day voice of Lydia Mueller, to the authentic, wonderful voices/letters of Emilie, her husband Isidore, Creole plantation slave owners in the 1850s, Louisiana- each voice drew me into the complex realities of that time. From sensuality/passion to the stark cruelties of slavery, Kasai weaves her word magic from the first page to the final page. You will enter this world, and emerge changed—that kind of magic." Alma Luz Villanueva, poet, short story writer, and novelist
"I GOBBLED UP this novel. Kasai teases the reader, luring them alternately through foreboding and hope. A tour guide into madness, she leads you almost all the way down the rabbit hole, leaving a light to find your way out. Her phrasing is so luxurious I wish this were a tapestry I could run my hands along." Gayle Feallock, former editor at Harcourt, Inc.