Academic critics and professional reviewers alike have praised “Witch Lit” as uniquely, and admirably, “feminist.” Horror and Fantasy stories within the category are rich with both iconic stereotypes inherited from medieval Europe and more modern derivations of female resistance strengthened by “magic.” Of course, these positive readings can often feel “forced,” and the wisest of readers must accept that ambiguities will always be a part of the subgenre as far as feminist theories or concepts of feminine empowerment are concerned.
When authors Christopher Golden and Rachel Autumn Deering combined their talents as editors of the Hex Life anthology, they came away with a wicked brew of 18 short stories that run the gamut of depictions of the iconic witch — from the Monstrous Female woodlands witch to the Wise Woman healer and guardian of the city, with pretty much every combination in between. (To celebrate the 2020 release of their book, the editors offered the fabulous Ginger Nuts of Horror review site a brief essay on popular misconceptions about fictional witches.)
At the time of the book’s release, a Publishers Weekly review said of the 18 tales in Hex Life, “Nothing here really wows.” Snappish little put-downs like that are no longer popular in this online age of trolls, trigger warnings, and pile-ons. And so the Publishers Weekly reviewer then tries to soften the blow by saying that “fans” of the subgenre will find the anthology “a pleasant diversion.”
Set aside the truth that calling the book “a pleasant diversion” is itself a negative comment, and focus on that first stab: “Nothing here really wows.” This is where the Publishers Weekly quick-bite review gets the book all wrong, because there certainly are stories in Hex Life that can “wow” a reader.
Unfortunately, those stories are not the focus of this Z-Street Shuffle review. For that, you’ll have to look at the Hu Reads Horror blogsite, where I hone in on five stories in the collection that really do “wow” me. Of course, what turns me on about those stories is their depiction of the witch as a force of nature, a keeper of an ancient cosmology that has been lost to most of us within the industrialized modern societies worldwide. These are stories of female power, and they range from the “positive” portrayal to the “negative” portrayal of witches.
What is provided here is a rapidly written “fan” nod to the other 13 stories in Hex Life, the ones that didn’t make the cut for a longer and more focused rave only because they do not match the criteria of imagining the witch as a cosmic power. (Though admittedly a couple of them do fall short of even being “a pleasant diversion,” but I don’t want some disgruntled publisher’s assistant, outraged podcaster, or social media figure to go ballistic.)
There is gold in this anthology’s “13 others,” but if there’s anything I’ve learned from television it is that to get the shiny nugget you have to dig through lusterless soil. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because for this book the “soil” is fertile, ready to nourish a mind that needs a bit of unchallenging entertainment, maybe a fun bedtime read before sleep overcomes the reader.
Among the most “successful” of these entertaining shorts are those that reach into pulp fiction territory with one hand while keeping a firm grip on the narrative landscape of creative, compelling, even surprising storytelling.
Innovativeness is a key quality here.
Among the best of these is Alma Katsu’s “Gold Among the Black,” which plays with a medieval setting and mixes in some werewolf lore. Like other contributions to the anthology, Katsu’s story offers the witch as a shape-shifter, a creature of the wilds, and a determined commitment to self-survival.
“Toil & Trouble” by Sherrilyn and Madaug Kenyon similarly sets itself in the past, assumedly sometime in the 17th Century when Europe and England threw themselves with a fury into persecuting women accused of practicing witchcraft. “Toil & Trouble” seems to draw inspiration from Shakespeare’s “three sisters,” with the focus twisting not to the witches but to their indentured servant girl who harbors a secret hatred for “the three Stygian bitches and their sing-songy lies” (283). Somehow, “Toil & Trouble” ends up being a devilishly tricky morality tale.
Rachel Autumn Deering provides yet another nod to Shakespeare’s trio of witches with her story “Where Relics Go to Dream and Die.” Deering’s story includes many of the common tropes: the cauldron, child sacrifice, even the succubus. It is a tale of final wish fulfillment — the good death — and romantic sacrifice. The finest twist in the story is a witch being trapped as a candle, “an act of spite” that left her alive and lonely/longing for as long as the candle remained intact, unconsumed by flame. This suspension of death would only be ended by flame.
Amber Benson quite successfully plays with the police procedural “confessional” format with her story “This Skin.” It is entirely chilling, albeit with a possibly disappointing and somehow overdone twist at the denouement.
Kelley Armstrong’s “Black Magic Momma” likewise plays with the crime subgenre, her witch being something of a private detective searching for lost grimoires that she then sells to the highest bidder. The story feels like it belongs within the world of Harry Potter, which means it is fast-paced and fun. Witch candy, anyone?
Equally fun and flat is Rachel Caine’s “Home,” a story that tosses the undead into the mix and cooks up as something resembling a Charlaine Harris’ vampire novel.
Kristin Dearborn seems to be drawing blood from the same vein with her story “The Dancer,” yet another “nothing new under the sun” narrative about a psychic investigator looking into the case of an adolescent with a terrifying telekinetic power.
“The Memories of Trees” is admirable for author Mary SanGiovanni’s attempt at mixing Folk Horror, Science Fiction, and Dystopian Narrative together.
Hillary Monahan’s “Bless Your Heart” is among the finest in the collection insofar as it makes use of events that many readers may be familiar with in the real stories of their lives: bullying, single parenthood, class-based inequality, and educational systems that sometimes fail their students in the most regrettable ways. Monahan’s contribution is heartbreaking in its depiction of a smart, gentle child being bullied to the point of self-hatred. Teasing the image of a housewife learning to cook from a Julia Child cookbook, “Bless Your Heart” portrays witchcraft as a means toward “revenge” and the reclamation of justice for the powerless who have been brutalized by the powerful.
Two of the stories in the book build directly from the pre-Civil Rights period of segregation in the Deep South. Here is Chesya Burke’s “Haint Me Too” and Tanarive Due’s “Last Stop on Route Nine.” Of these, Burke’s narrative is the strongest in its presentation of the supernatural being used as a tool for resistance to the violence of lynching.
Yet another historical period of madness is called forth by Helen Marshall for her story “The Nekrolog.” Marshall backgrounds her story in the oft-overlooked time of ethnic violence and genocide that exploded into warfare in the Balkans following the dismantling of the Soviet Union. This is a praiseworthy literary work, offering a narrative that shifts with slyness between two expanding plots. It is heartrending to see a family separated by deceptive state agencies, the kind of story that has global echoes in the actual histories of indigenous, colonized peoples around the world. “The Nekrolog” eventually directs its energies into a story of government-sponsored Psi-Op training, leading to one of the collection’s best images of young women quietly turning tables on their captors and using what they learn against their oppressors. Marshall’s is a story of resistance that hits its target, while other stories of a similar vein merely try to aim.
The collection ends with Theodora Goss’ “How to Become a Witch Queen,” a creative retelling of the Snow White fable but with a pinch of political and military strategy. Like Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, this tale is most appealing for making the familiar less so while adding a dose of feminist resistance to the hard power of state authority.
These are the stories that somehow fail to weave a complete enchantment. What the editors have pulled together is impressive for its diversity, and taken as a whole the collection is an entertaining book that serves well as a bedtime read. That’s not a very enthusiastic compliment, but neither is it a put-down.
Readers who love Horror will probably be disappointed by Hex Life.
The Weird Sisters, 1782, by Johann Heinrich Fuseli.
John Henry & the Witch Woman, 1935, by Fred Becker.