4.5 Stars

A bit-sized story of supernatural KKK members, the black resistance fighters that are trying to save the world, and how easily racism can spiral out of control. The body horror in this is REAL, and I would not recommend reading while eating or right before bed.

I absolutely loved the writing, and I cannot wait to read more books by this author!

Thank you to netgalley for the free e-arc. All opinions are my own.

This was a fantastic bite-sized story with a huge range of emotional exploration. It’s incredibly satisfying to read about the KKK as the actual monsters they are and see vengeance coming their way. This was brutal and fast-paced and i loved it so much! I enjoyed the short novella format but I also think this concept was so great that it could have been elaborated on more in a longer novel. Still, I had a great time with it!

Wow! What a powerful novella. *starry eyes* Ring Shout is a layered story with so much depth, a fantastic premise, and both historical and modern significance. This is the novella form at its finest. There's an incredible amount to be read into Ring Shout -- it's clear the author put thought into every single choice. The way the monsters work, the twists, even seemingly random conversations... they're all woven intricately together and everything is doing at LEAST double duty. It doesn't overstay its welcome, but neither is it too sparse.

This story contains the supernatural, but that's not the scary part. The scary part is the way we can read into what it means for our very human world, especially in light of recent events. I loved the story arc, the characters and the direction the plot went. Highly recommended!

Thank you Tor.com Publishing for providing a free e-copy of the book through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of Ring Shout in exchange for an honest review!

I'm actually reviewing Ring Shout after reading it for the second time & am even raising it to five stars because that's what it deserves. Even during my reread, I still felt so many emotions.

First off, the concept? GOLDEN. I love the route P. Djèlí Clark takes when exploring themes of racism -- it's unique & very hard-hitting. Second? The characters? This is only a novella & yet, each character is so well-thought out that by the end I was weeping. Listen, if you've read this -- you know there's a particular tear-inducing scene & I'm here to tell you, it doesn't get easier the second time around. Clark knocked this one out of the park & if I'm here to encourage you to read anything at all, let it be Ring Shout.

Possibly one of the most unique books I’ve read! Finished it in one sitting and seriously need a sequel. I wish it had been a bit longer so I could get to know some of the characters more.

4+ stars. In Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark melds two types of horror, Lovecraftian monsters and the bloody rise of the Ku Klux Klan in 1922 Georgia, as a group of black resistance fighters take on an enemy with frightening supernatural powers.

As Ku Klux Klan members march down the streets of Macon, Georgia on the Fourth of July, Maryse Boudreaux, who narrates the story, watches from a rooftop with her two companions, sharpshooter Sadie and former soldier Cordelia “Chef” Lawrence, a bomb expert. They’ve baited a trap for the “Ku Kluxes,” who are hellish demons that hide in disguise among the Klan humans, taking over the bodies of the worst of them. The trap works, but the silver pellets and iron slags contained in the bomb aren’t enough to kill the three monsters that rise out of the wreckage and their human outer veneers. It takes more to kill a Ku Klux.

Since The Birth of a Nation had come out seven years earlier, in 1915, susceptible white folk surrendered to the spell of hatred woven by the groundbreaking silent film with its message of white supremacy and KKK heroism, lending manpower to the KKK and spiritual power to evil demons. Now The Birth of a Nation is getting a grand rerelease at Stone Mountain, a Georgia park honoring the Confederacy, in a few days. The spirits that frequently commune with Maryse let her know that this will cause a massive rise of evil and hatred, a rift that the demonic powers can use to fully inhabit and take over our world.

Ring Shout is little hard to wade through at times, with lots of idiomatic speech. Otherwise, though, this is powerful stuff. H.P. Lovecraft’s eldritch monsters and, more, his infamous racism lend themselves well to a plot centered on the infiltration of the KKK — and from there, our world — by unearthly, destructive powers that use our weaknesses against us. Opposing them are lively, earthy blacks and their sympathizers, many of whom have their own supernatural connections, primarily arising out of African traditions and folklore. Among these are Maryse’s magical sword and the Ring Shout, a ritual gathering involving song and dance. It’s “about surviving slavery times, praying for freedom, and calling on God to end that wickedness.”

Clark’s novella also points out the seductive power of hatred and rage, and how they can twist good to bad. “A righteous anger and a cry for justice,” Maryse realizes, aren’t the same thing at all as hate.

"These monsters want to pervert that. Turn it to their own ends. Because that’s what they do. Twist you all up so that you forget yourself. Make you into something like them."

In Ring Shout, Clark deftly uses a historical and fantastical setting, characters and motifs to create a novella that’s both timeless and timely, with a powerful message for all.

I am officially a P. Djèlí Clark stan.

Can I give this ten out of five stars? Because it's honestly deserving of that. I know we're only four days into 2021, but this might be my favourite read of 2021.

This book was absolutely impeccable. You know how the best lies have a bit of the truth in them? So do the best fictions. His work is on point, gives you the history, overlaid with his beautiful imagination and creates a world so vivid that honestly you might as well be there with Maryse on Stone Mountain and some Ku Kluxes.

I'm also a sucker for a well written battle scene. I don't know what it is, but battle scenes just do it for me, in movies and in books. In movies it's the choreography of it all (I'm a dancer so I appreciate that stuff), but in books it's a whole different ball game because it has to be written in such a way that you can visualise the choreography taking place. It's a beauty of butchery, and he gets it.

Excellent, swashbuckling tale, grappling with racism in a demon-plagued alt-history. Great ensemble cast. Full review at Positron.

“IN AMERICA, DEMONS WEAR WHITE HOODS.”

In 1915, The Birth of a Nation spreads hate and turns racists into Ku Klux, monsters who are determined to kill black folk. Standing between these Ku Kluxes and their goal is resistance fighters like Maryse Boudreaux. She and her fellow fighters hunt those that would hunt them, and send these demons straight to hell. Something even worse that Ku Kluxes is rumbling in Macon, though, and as the summary states, “The war on Hell is about to heat up.”

This book is awesome. I’m a huge fan of looking at racism through metaphor, especially from a horror lens, and this book doesn’t disappoint. Turning those who would wear white hoods into literal monsters that need fighting is genius. It reminds me a tad of Dread Nation in concept, but racists as monsters is the only real comparison. This is a wholly original story with intriguing characters that I was 100% rooting for. It grabs you from the beginning, takes you on a wild ride, and doesn’t let go until the last page.

It moved so quickly, and was pretty short. Tor knows how to get me and keep me coming back for more. I never get bogged down in tomes and overly long descriptions of beautiful prose. No. I am here for the characters and the plot, and Tor has got me covered. This one’s out now, so if you’ve watched Lovecraft Country, and or read Dread Nation and wanna stay on brand, check this out!

Trigger Warnings: white supremacy, blood, murder, violence, racism and violence targeted towards African Americans, discussion of racism other marginalized groups such as Indigenous people experienced, slurs, generational trauma.

Tor sent me an advanced readers copy via Netgalley. This does not change my opinion of the book. All quotes used have been matched against a published copy.

This book messed me up. Ring Shout makes every sharp ring of Mayse’s sword sound as loud as a shout in your ear.

Maryse is a monster hunter. In her is the anger of what white people and the Ku Klux Klan have done to her people. It consumes her, that centuries built up anger that she has experienced herself but also the rage she’s inherited from her ancestors.

“Y’all got a good reason to hate. All the wrongs been done to you and yours? A people been whipped and beaten, hunted and hounded, suffered so grievously at their hands. You have every reason to despise them. To loathe them for centuries of depravations. That hate would be so pure, so sure and righteous-so strong!”

The Shout is about a movement, about surviving slavery and praying for freedom.

A witch and his group of believers read from a conjuring book, bringing forth the monsters they call Ku Kluxes. All stem from a movie. The re-release of D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of A Nation. It is about to be shown once again and Maryse worries it would cause another influx of monsters. Surrounding an imagined world where D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of A Nation conjured not just a surge of the Ku Klux Klan but created monsters they call the Ku Kluxes, monstrous beings with mouths that feast on flesh, claws for ripping, and the likeness of Ku Klux Klan robes.

In Clark’s world, the people that inflicted centuries of slavery and white supremacy on Maryse’s people conjured yet more monsters. They are the personification of rage and hate. Rage consumes itself and multiplies. What Clark did is create a supernatural world in which the rage and hatred of our world is understood through the supernatural. Real history can often be supernatural horror.

Clark also includes discussion on what white supremacy forced on Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups.

Ring Shout almost reminds me of a more fantastical take on Charles Chesnutt’s writing. It has that tone and pacing of early 20th century novels mixed with the eerie tales of Southern African American culture. It is a novel that feels like those dark moments in horror films where the sound is off, there’s an eerie silence just waiting from a deathly outcome. Every feeling is raw and explored.

The build up in the story reminds me of The Marrow of Tradition, a bloodthirsty tale of white people’s call for a race riot on African Americans. Clark’s characters speak AAVE, and some speak Gullah, both of which are built into Clark’s writing style. Ring Shout calls forth The Conjure Tales, supernatural tales inspired by African American folklore. Maryse carrying around a book of African American folklore places that magic and supernatrual horror of African American stories. The beings that white people summon into their world in addition to the beings of African American folklore all create a speculative novel that I never could have imagined existed but I am so happy to have read.

It was all consuming and intense on a level that left me sitting and wondering how much time had passed. Everything is historically placed. The land, its trees and its roots, is full of magic. Just like Clark’s writing,

"When I call the sword I get visions from them angry slaves, their songs pulling at restless chiefs and kings bound to the blade, making them cry out until sleeping gods stir in answer.”

Clark doesn’t give easy answers. This is not ‘the rage the protagonist feels is wrong’ type of book. This book doesn’t give a tale of morality which feeds you all the answers. It’s more accurate that Clark shows how ridiculous it is to expect people not to feel justifiable in their rage.

Frankly. I don’t read enough SFF centering African American folklore and this book certainly shines as an example of what the genre could look like in the future. I hope so.

I loved this novella and wished it was a full novel. Clark creates and interesting world and draws upon the ring shout narratives to make this feel so real. It made my list of favorite reads in 2020.

Ring Shout reminded me of the Tulsa Massacre in 1921 when a mob of white people attacked black residents of Greenwood in Oklahoma. It gave me a peek into the difficulties and life of black people after world war 1, and although I will never fully understand it, this was a great way to educate myself further in understanding the Black Lives Matter movement.

I would say, I highly recommend this book because of how gritty and explicit it is. The book will share to you the pain and determination of racism and colorism that people are still experiencing to this day. I can't wait to dive more into P Djeli Clark's works and novellas.

This was a really compelling and powerful look at the damage hate can do. In a history only slightly different from our own, the Ku Klux Klan are literal monsters summoned by the sorcerer D. W. Griffith using his film The Birth of a Nation as a rallying cry to unleash hell on Earth. I loved the protagonist, Maryse who hunts down and kills 'Ku Kluxers' and thought that Clark did a fantastic job of providing nuance and depth to her narrative, given the length of the book. The world created here is frightening and unsettling, more so when you see how closely it mirrors historical events and I would be intrigued to read more stories about Maryse, Chef and the others as I think their fight could prove to be a depressingly long one.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Honestly, this was probably the best SFF that we read in 2020. Its no wonder that this got picked up for a TV show because it was a wild ride from start to finish, with more heart and soul than we have a right to hope for in our books. Interviewed the author at skiffyandfanty.com.

When I was initially gifted an ARC of this title. I could not wait to read it, and thus, devoured it in an afternoon. Upon finishing it, I was left utterly stunnedby what I had read. 'Ring Shout' is a flawless historical fantasy novella, not a word is wasted, no thread left loose.

In 1915, D.W. Griffith released 'The Birth of a Nation', a silent film adapted from the 1905 novel and play 'The Clansman', by Thomas Dixon Jr., the film presented a mythologized representation of America that is part fiction and part fact. Considering that just a decade before, the most exciting thing on film was a recording of Fred Ott's sneeze captured by Thomas Edison, this three-hour long movie was monumental. 'The Birth of a Nation' cast a spell over audiences and entrapped their imaginations. In an era when America was starting to flex its international muscles on the eve of the First World War, 'The Birth of a Nation' seemed to give Americans a history...an origin story for their own hero myth.

But this fantasy was toxic. It presented the Lost Cause ideology of the forgotten South - a vanished, idealistic place destroyed by the Civil War just a generation before. The film follows the assassination of President Lincoln and looks at how the United States would knit itself together again. While Lincoln is presented favorably, the film itself takes up the mantle of the victimized White South now “overrun” with freed slaves who are portrayed by White actors in blackface and as ignorant and sexually deviant to white women. And so, a “hero” arises in the South, and ‘The Birth of a Nation’ really becomes the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan. Despite being controversial even in its own time, ‘The Birth of a Nation’ still garnered international attention and was even the first film to be screened at the White House for President Wilson. The film was distributed with a promotional booklet and shown in nearly every movie house across the country to ecstatic audiences in a concentrated marketing campaign that the likes of P.T. Barnum would be envious of.

Into this world of celluloid spellcasting, author P. Djèlí Clark sets ‘Ring Shout’ and offers us a look at cathartic storytelling that unmasks monsters, generational trauma, and the all too common white-washed histories of the American South.

In ‘Ring Shout’ the popularity of ‘The Birth of a Nation’ has instilled fear into the minds and hearts of white people, turning their thoughts hateful toward their fellow countrymen. Riding on the tailcoats of the film’s success, the Klan’s numbers are swelling. But these aren’t your average bigots running around Macon, these Klan members are actually chthonic demons trying to bring Hell to Earth through violent acts. As this wave of ignorance spreads from seas to shining sea, there are those that can see the Ku Kluxes for what they really are and can destroy them.

‘Ring Shout’ is easily one of the best books I have read this year. It is powerful, heartfelt, a call to arms, funny, and deeply moving. This book, through the guise of fantasy, is a study of how one action – say, the creation of a film – can alter the mindset of an entire generation with repercussions still felt over a century later. I highly recommend this book and implore you to add it to your reading lists.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with a gratis copy in exchange for an honest review.

P. Djeli Clark's short novel, Ring Shout, focuses on a group of post-WWII women who have made it their mission in life to rid the world of Klu Klux's, although these Klu Klux's are not the same as what you're thinking they are. Combining folklore, African mythology, and a healthy dose of monster horror, Ring Shout promises to be an exciting tale of three women fighting for justice in the Jim Crow south.

Unfortunately, a lot of this novella just didn't work for me. I felt like the origins of the Klu Klux's, and their methods to get humans to serve them really took away from the historical context of the Klan, as if the white people, instead of acting on their own volition, were actually just enslaved to these fantastical monsters and were actually good people once that influence was removed. I could never quite pin down what Clark was trying to say with this story, and so I never felt very connected to it.

I did really enjoy the characters in the novel, each woman was unique, and badass, and emotional, and the concept itself was unique, it just didn't land with me.

The challenge of a novella is crafting a great world in a limited amount of space. Ring Shout has a great world, an alternate past where the KKK is still strong and also filled with actual monsters instead of just horrible humans, but this world is so deep in history that you never get fully drawn into it.

While the story was fantastic and Lovecraftian at times, I wanted so much more information about the history of the world and its inhabitants. I was missing that connection the whole time and I always felt as though I had been dropped into a place where nobody was telling me how I got there.

Since the world and characters are so fascinating I'll say that the short length is only making me want much more. I would love not only a second book, but a prequel as well, so I could really dig into the history of the world and the people who live there.

As it is, Ring Shout is a tremendous alternate world tale that I would love to explore further. It can be a bit challenging to be fully immersed in the story, but the end result is satisfyingly horrific.

I really enjoyed reading this book. The character development was subtle in a myriad of ways, and the plot moves along quickly enough to keep interest. I could have used a little more expansion around the ending of the book, but on the whole found the experience very enjoyable.

This is the book that got me through the final days of the 2020 Presidential election.

It’s now 1922, and the Ku Klux Klan, fueled by a re-showing of The Birth of a Nation, is on the rise. The hatred and violence it encompasses has opened the doors to an even greater, supernatural evil that turns human members into demonic Ku Kluxes (imagine the peaked hood and eye holes conforming to the shape of the skull beneath). Will the menace spread to every corner of the land? All is not lost however, for four intrepid Black women have banded together to defeat it. Each has her own talents, whether skills gained as airwomen in World War I, or through the magic passed on from generations past. Although unique in personality, the bonds of sisterhood and shared purpose has welded them into an indomitable team.

This is the book that got me through the final days of the 2020 Presidential election. I’d turn away from the news, as full of fear and bigotry as it was of hope, and dive into the world of Ring Shout, where the loyalty and courage of Black women heroes stood fast against the forces of evil.

That gives me hope.

One of the more visceral stories I read this year. The infamous movie "Birth of a Nation" tours the country, inspiring hatred and monsters, both human and literal Klu Kluxes, white monsters looking for something, anything, to kill. Swordswoman Marsye with her friends Chef and Sadie work to destroy the monsters while suffering under the harsh cruelty of 1915 America. Ring Shout delves into the anger Marsye and her friends feel toward the hateful Klu Kluxes and those who support them and the strength it takes these Black women to protect the people around them. Engaging and imaginative, with well developed characters and sharp, jagged feeling.