The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power ed. by Terry J. Benton-Walker (review)
2024; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 77; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.2024.a927627
ISSN1558-6766
Tópico(s)Race, History, and American Society
ResumoReviewed by: The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power ed. by Terry J. Benton-Walker Kate Quealy-Gainer Benton-Walker, Terry J., ed. The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power. Tor Teen, 2024 [320p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781250861269 $20.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781250861283 $11.99 Reviewed from digital galleys Ad Gr. 9-12 Editor Benton-Walker offers a collection of thirteen stories of body horror that aim to interrogate racial and gender dynamics within the horror genre; as the title suggests, white guys here are often the first to die (usually violently), but plenty of other characters also meet gruesome ends. Several tales look at how petty cruelties and casual violence are afforded to white men without accountability, playing out separately in Àbíké-Íyímídé's "All Eyes on Me" and Edgmon's "Best Served Cold." The former sees an obnoxious, "nice guy" boyfriend brutally murdered by his Black girlfriend in a hall of mirrors, while the latter leans hard into body horror, with the white villain kidnapping and maiming an Indigenous girl, slowly feeding her own flesh to her. Vengeance is a prominent theme, with plenty of the stories evoking a (perhaps distressing) triumph as the bad guy dies in a variety of horrific ways, but the more interesting tales, like Gong's ghostly "Docile Girls" or Jaigirdar's dystopian "Heaven," examine the morality behind wanting such payback. Much of the social commentary, however, is buried beneath descriptions of flayed skin, trailing intestines, and crushed bodies, and there's a serious risk of perpetuating the stereotypical tropes the collection is meant to upturn, stripping agency from characters of color and subjecting them to violence for the sake of violence. Still, fans with strong stomachs will enjoy this as an equally terrifying counterpart to Evans' The Black Girl Survives in this One (BCCB 5/24). Copyright © 2024 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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