‘Bitter Root’ #1: An Endorsement
The Harlem Renaissance. Black life. Root work. Jazz. Diesel Funk (shout out to Tim Fielder) Monsters and monster hunting. Family. Action. Challenging of gender stereotypes. Camaraderie. Mysterious villains. A world adjacent to the world of the normals. Bitter Root delivers all this, and more. It also asks some very good questions.
One of the problems I’ve always had with horror and horror-adjacent material is that very few things are more frightening than being Black in the world. If we can’t be safe in Kroger’s, in church, being stopped by police, walking with our loved ones, going to school, where can we be safe? This book tackles this head on, without flinching, without apology.