Warning:
Spoilers for much of Joelle Wellington's The Blonde Dies First
In last month's Constant Reader I
raved about Joelle Wellington's literary debut Their Vicious Games and
said how eagerly I was awaiting her next book. Little did I know that I had by
pure chance taken it out from the library earlier this month.
The Blonde Dies First in many ways establishes Wellington as
the force she is. As you might expect based on the title this is a horror
parody and indeed in the acknowledgement section Wellington pays tribute to Wes
Craven. She even has a post-credits scene that is written as a screenplay and shows
yet another parody for those of us who stay to the movie waiting for the last
Easter egg.
Now I need to be clear on the surface
this is a brilliant book. It works not only as a satire of the genre but also
as a solid horror in its own right. It's one of the first YA books that
genuinely frightened me with its descriptions as so many of the horrible events
happened to its protagonists. The fear is as genuine as the satire which in an
era when so many so-called horror novels don't even bother to hide how
derivative they are and care more about jump scares then actual scares, this is
refreshing. There's clearly a great deal of love for both the original film and
it works well ninety percent of the time. Indeed it's so affective as a horror
and as a parody of it that I imagine readers, both young and older, missing the
far more troubling subtext of Wellington's prose.
The problem is I couldn't and
unfortunately it really kept me from being able to recommend this book the way
I could so many others. Don't get me wrong; it's a great read and everything I
said it was. The problem is not with most horror: it doesn't make sense when
you stop and think about it. The problem is: it does make sense when you
think about it and it's that part that reveals Wellington's bias.
The novel is narrated by Devon , an
African-American teenage girl who like the author lives in Brooklyn. She has a
twin sister Drew who she used to be close with until everybody found out she
was a genius and she was put in a special high school. Since then Drew has been
separate from Devon's friend group which include Gael, Malachi, Leila and Yaya.
All of these characters meet certain
archetypes of horror as we find out: Devon is the blonder (she dyed her hair
for a party) Malachi is both African-American and gay (Devon's is queer but
we'll get to that) Gael is the nerd, particularly when it comes to horror
movies, Leila is somewhat pretentious, Drew is the smart one and Yaya is the
final girl. They also all fit the multi-cultural makeup of the Heights, though
in a troubling sign everyone refuses to differentiate between Leila's Judaism
overcoming her being white. (That part doesn't come up until the last page of
the book by which point Wellington's bias has been spelled out far more
blatantly.) Devon has felt Drew's genius has made her pull away from her friend
group and she's afraid that this will leave her and her friends behind. She's
also never truly liked the 'bougie' friends (read white) Drew has and it's
telling that when they take the G train it’s a sign of just how little Devon
has traveled and how uncomfortable she is that Devon is far behind her.
It is an effort to try and deal with
this that Devon plans out 'The Best Summer Ever' in order to try and make up
for the distance between the twins which Devon thinks is entirely on Drew's
part. For that reason she convinces their friends to go to a party with Devon
school friends and it's clear that all of them think they're pretentious and patronizing.
Devon shows some bad signs when Drew is using what she calls fancy words such
as 'furthermore' and 'definitely'. All of this bothers Devon because she thinks
Drew is becoming less who she is.
There's something troubling about this
from the start, particularly when I think of Their Vicious Games. That
book had to do with Adina Walker, an upper class black woman at an almost
entirely white Connecticut prep school. She's spent her entire life trying to
get higher up and when her dreams are shattered, she finds herself signing up
for 'The Finish'. She's willing to do anything: "working twice as hard to
get half as much', the famous phrase is uttered early in the novel. There's an
underlying message in Blonde that argues that it those very people who
do these things have betrayed their own by trying to permeate white society
where the wealth and power is. Drew is trying to do just that – that's clearly
what her family wants – but Devon seems to judge Drew harshly for selling out
who she is to do so.
This part I should mention is resolved
by the end of the novel. And if it were just the relationship between the twins
used as a mirror, I could probably overlook the implications. The problem it's not
just the relationship with the twins.
Again I'll be vague on the details
because some readers might very much enjoy this book.
There's a clear bias to how the demon
that stalks the friend group . Each time it misses one of them, it chooses to
kill someone else. And each time, that person is labeled so horrible in some
way that they deserve to be killed instead. I don't think I'm risking
spoiling much when I tell you the three people who miss being killed are people
of color and the people who get killed in their place are white.
Okay that last paragraph smacked of
entitlement and privilege. The truth is that the most fun and pleasure from Blonde
is how Wellington wants to completely subvert the genre in the biggest rule
possible: not have any of the friend group end up victims of the killer. Indeed
there's a line that a characters gives as to just how dull a movie that would
be if that were to happen. And there's an equal amount of scares and laughs to
be mined out of how the characters are determined that the only reason Yaya is
the Final Girl is so that the monster is lured out and they can kill it.
It's here that Wellington reaches the
satiric brilliance of her previous book in what may be the darkest joke of Blonde:
the characters desperation to avoid not only being the victim of the
monster but landing in police custody as responsible for the deaths. This is
made clear in the starkest scene after the demon makes its first kill when even
though the death is clearly viewed as a suicide, the police interview Devon and
they clearly want to put her in jail for what happened. None of the friends
even try to explain to the grownups what's happening to them because they know
how crazy they'll be viewed and they are also adult to know that they might
escape the demon killing them only to be gunned down by the NYPD or at best
thrown in jail for his crimes. These are the deepest and best parts of Blonde
and it's where she comes close to what I thought this novel would be: a
mashup of the best parts of Scream and Get Out.
And I'll be honest: its refreshing to
see a horror novel of any kind end and all of the people who were around when
the killing started are all alive and ready to party. It goes against all of
the rules of horror films but that's the point Wellington is trying to do. So I
could let go of the troubling nature of the race of the victims mainly because
that's part of the joke. The problems comes when we learn who's behind the
monster and it's that which shows the greatest sign of Wellington's bias.
Throughout Blonde there are two
characters who are constantly raised as the most contemptible people in the
neighborhood. Kendra Thompson-Bryant and her son Keith. Kendra is the daughter
of Mr. Thompson, who used to live in the neighborhood but moved in after her
father died to gut his brownstone and turn into highly priced apartments.
Now it's clear throughout the book
that what Devon and her friends consider the real underlying threat is
gentrification, the very real probably they facing urban minority neighborhoods
to this. Kendra has been sounding complaints about all of the things that made
this neighborhood distinctive, most recently the ice cream truck coming by. Everyone,
child and adult, hates Kendra and her son – and I have to emphasize right now,
Kendra and her son are African-American.
I don't deny the very real problem of
gentrification to our country in every part of it. The problem is that by doing
so Wellington has all of her characters view the Thompson-Bryant's as monsters
well before the climax of the novel because they've 'forgotten where they came
from'. This is a very real problem faced by upper-class African-Americans who
have had to strike the balance between being viewed as dangerous and radical by
the far right and Uncle Toms by the progressive left. Indeed one wonders if that's
part of the reason why Devon is so worried about Drew changing. But where there
was at least the suggestion that Drew was having trouble dealing with it from
the perspective of being a teenager, there's
no nuance at all about Kendra Thompson-Bryant. She has, in that
particular parlance, sold out.
It's here that I have by far the
biggest problem with how Wellington looks at Kendra – and by extension so many
others in this community. Not long after Kendra refuses to help with the block
party her mother unloads to her family:
"You should have heard her
in that uppity voice…She thinks she's better than us because she's got an education.
"
'Uppity' as Devon's mother knows full
well, is one of the most notorious dog whistles when it comes to
African-Americans in our nation's history. She also has to know when white
people used it was usually the kind of phrase that was followed by a lynching.
And it's worth noting this is the exact same thing that Drew's parents have
been trying to do when they helped her go to a special school to achieve black
excellence. They are saying this in front of Drew at dinner and they don't see
the double standard. I'm not sure Wellington sees it either.
Indeed she makes it clear in
everything that Devon says. "Forget hometown solidarity or class solidarity
from Kendra Thompson-Bryant. She's not that kind of Black."
How do I put this mildly? This is as
bigoted a term as I've heard on some of the most offensive far right chatrooms
over the years. I've heard bigoted terms from white people in other novels. But
this is a kind of racism that cuts much deeper. In a way it says everything
that Adina Walker is trying to achieve in Their Vicious Games will never
be understood in this neighborhood: they would just her as an outsider because
she came from Connecticut and went to a prep school, rather than public school.
Because that's the thing about Keith
who is in college, who has been reading the same kind of books that I suspect
Drew has been reading and who speaks in an educated tone of voice. Everybody in
the friend group hates him because in their mind, he's just as pretentious.
Devon finds Keith insufferable because "he's inherited Kendra's genes.
Pretentious, condescending and entitled."
To be clear there's no doubt that
Kendra going forward had to work twice as hard to get half as much as so many
other African-Americans have been forced to. Wellington is basically arguing
that if it makes you forget what you came from, we are entitled to hate you
just as much – if not more – then the white people who are making our
lives horrible.
It's worth noting Devon doesn't bother
to hide the fact that she's upset the owner of the convenience store where she
works has started selling goods 'that the yoga moms and young professionals
moving in three blocks over prefer." She acknowledges he's making money
and able to replace the floors and make it look better. Then there's this
throwaway line:
"People with more cash to spend
are good for business, but while the streets look the same, everyday I
recognize fewer of the faces walking them. Another reminder that everything is changing."
I can't help but wonder about
Wellington's personal politics reading these lines and again question the
meaning of the term 'progressive'. By definition, progress means changing and
improvement. Devon wants to have it both ways and the fact that Devon's parents
clearly want economic improvement but don't want the makeup of their
neighborhood to change is very troubling. And it's particularly unsettling
considering how just sixty years ago, predominantly African-American
neighborhoods in the north were frequently the discussion of poverty and termed
as ghettos. It seems impossible that people could yearn for that as 'a simpler
time' but that's what is considered gospel by the people in the heights.
And the final nail in the coffin comes
when Devin makes it clear that Kendra's father was as bad as anyone because he
had 'an old school way of thinking. He was nice to Drew because you
bootstrapped your way out of what he thought of as beneath the
respectable type of Black people." I should mention at no point does Devon
make it clear what her idea of the ideal African-American should be. That's not
her fault; she is a teenager and doesn't understand nuance the way adults
should. But it shows the burden Drew is put under.
And this is where I have to tell you
that's eventually revealed that Kendra is the one who summons the demon into
existence as will use her son as its host. None of this surprises any of the
friends, because she was just that kind of person. The problem is when she says
her motivations for killing the friend group:
"You're all annoying. You are
loud. You are rowdy. You bring down the property value. You complain about my
attempts to better the neighborhood. And so does your mother."
To be clear Kendra Thompson-Bryant is
killing six children because she wants their parents to move out because she
wants to bring in new people for her brownstone."
What's telling is that there's a
larger lesson earlier on the same page. When asked how she summoned the demon,
Kendra tells them:
"It wasn't that hard. There's
misery everywhere. All you have to do is invite it in."
In another book this would be the kind
of profound statement that you could see being the purpose of a good horror
movie – perhaps written by Jordan Peele. In Blonde all of the teenagers
hear it and because of the source, dismiss it. None of them can deny the truth
behind it – they all live in this world -
but because Kendra used it on them, they're not inclined to hear it out.
Indeed it's telling that while they're
spending so much time trying to survive none of them seem willing to understand
the higher purpose. There's something fun about this, I admit – part of the
joke of a horror movie is that teenagers make bad decisions and ignore logic –
but its disturbing when you consider that Wellington has made the ultimate
monster an African-American woman who some could say is trying to raise herself
out of the conditions of which she's been born.
But there's no effort by Wellington to
even try to give dimension to either Keith or Kendra. Usually it's the villains
of the story who have the most dimension or at least some depth to them. But
Kendra and Keith are both seen as cartoonish, atonal, Uncle Toms well before
they are identified as the source of evil. I grant you the reason that the
killings in any of the Scream movies made no sense on the surface level
but Wellington actually wants this to be a deeper reason.
But it's a sick and biased reaction
all the same. Really the point is made clear in the final pages when Kendra
tries to lure Drew over to the dark side and Drew makes it clear where she
stands: "I'm not like you. I'm an asshole, but I'm not a class
traitor." If I heard that line delivered in any movie, I'd walk out.
What makes all of this infuriating is
that earlier this year I read and in fact raved about Tiffany Jackson's The
Weight of Blood, an adaptation of Carrie put into the context of
today's racial divide. Among the other brilliant subtexts of Jackson's work is
that at every level of the narrative she made it crystal clear that the far
right's bigotry and the far left's bigotry were both equally responsible for
the horrors that unfolded and that both sides were intractably incorrect in
their views. Barnes demonstrated in Vicious Games that she is as
brilliant a writer as Jackson but as the above line indicates they are not
merely valid but by implication the correct ones for any African-American to
have. That's honestly more frightening than any of the horrors we see unfold in
Blonde because it comes very close to arguing for a kind of separatism,
which among other things isn't sustainable in New York, much less America.
I suspect that I might receive
blowback from seeing Barnes' point of view from my gaze as a white, cis male. I
would hope my reputation for reviewing books on this site that I've devoured
that have to deal with the female, LGBTQ+ spectrum and minority experience
would be able to overcome this. And I've read and devoured dozens more books
that dealt with this experience that I could appreciate and understand even if
I didn't relate to it. Blonde Dies First is the first book in a while
that I've read that troubles me with its narrative and that it comes from an
author whose first book was so brilliant in its depiction of a similar type of
horror, about the subjugation of women in society. There was a nuance even in
the grotesqueries that unfolded in Vicious Games that was extraordinary
and frightening. Blonde Dies First is a brilliant satire of the genre
and a scary horror read in its own right and other readers may be able to
overlook my problems with it. I can't, and I suspect that will keep me up at
night long after the images in the book itself have faded away.
No comments:
Post a Comment