I would like to thank Black Spot Books for an advance copy of this collection in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Black Spot Books

Published – Out Now

Price – £17.95 paperback £4.74 Kindle eBook

From hungry ghosts, vampiric babies, and shapeshifting fox spirits to the avenging White Lady of urban legend, for generations, Asian women’s roles have been shaped and defined through myth and story. In Unquiet Spirits, Asian writers of horror reflect on the impact of superstition, spirits, and the supernatural in this unique collection of 21 personal essays exploring themes of otherness, identity, expectation, duty, and loss, and leading, ultimately, to understanding and empowerment.

Horror is often about the clash of worlds the supernatural taking over our world and bending it to its will. The impact on those who witness it and the warnings they carry for us reading and watching with our mouths agape. But horror also allows us to process our reality; to see ourselves perhaps empowered to battle or become the monster and give us new perspectives on what our world means. In the fascinating Unquiet Spirits – Essays by Asian Women in Horror edited by Lee Murray and Angela Yuriko Smith we get an absorbing collection of tales where authors who themselves cross boundaries of Asian and western life with also the traditional views of the past mixed with those of the twenty-first century talk about various myths and legends and what they now represent. It is a powerful read I was captivated by and has given much food for thought.

In this collection all the entries are well worth reading but amongst the many to recommend are

Displaced Spirits: Ghosts of the Diaspora by Lee Murray – Murray talk of living as a woman of Kiwi and Chinese heritage in modern day New Zealand and why the legend of the hungry ghosts – ancestors who need placating to avoid their acts of misfortune has a strong historical resonance. This essay explores how not knowing much about your homeland and culture can itself make you hungry and feel lost; how for some immigrants there is the tragedy of knowing you now have family members we no longer remember the names and stories of and in particular how this in particular impacts women who were often viewed as lesser in the family traditions of the time.

Fox Daughter by Celine Murray – An exploration of a writer with Chinese and Māori family trees and this time linked to the story of the Huli jing – the nine tailed fox demon who loves to appear human and will kill to do so. Murray shows sympathy with the idea of someone appearing to fit in with another culture and hiding their true nature as an someone not wholly of the New Zealand world they live in. An interesting take where now the monster becomes someone we can actually relate to

Some Things Are Dangerous, But Can Be Lived With: The Ghost Baby of Malaysian Mythology by Geneve Flynn – this excellent tale looks at a family story and connects it to the legend of the kwee kia a creature made from the spirit of a deceased human fetus. Here Flynn sees this story as about how the past controls us and we find out about various members of the family in particular Aunt Rosemary a woman in an unhappy marriage that ultimately led to her battling to stay afloat and an untimely death that itself led to many further restrictions on Flynn’s mother which she never understood. The past shapes us in our families perhaps as cautionary tales to persuade us to be obedient and never be more than our families want. Flynn asks can that cycle then be broken in future generations as we come to terms with what happened.

The Substitute by Yi Izzy Yu – this essay also explores a family tragedy in this case a suicide of heir Great Aunt Wang Peiyu and Yu explores how the Tsigui a ghost that tricks others to dying the same way they did becomes an unusual way of explaining away suicide and suicide attempts that hides the more deeper issues that may have led to someone wanting to take their own life. It’s a sobering and thoughtful piece which will stay with me a long time.

The Unvoiced, The Unheard, The Unknown, The Unquiet by Ai Jiang – This powerful essay explores Jiang’s feeling of always being the outside; the person asked to always be quiet. The family pressure to have children; not to follow career dreams and here being themselves the hungry ghost that needs to feed their own desire to live the life they want and how this has echoed their later work. Here the culture and tradition of the past still has a huge shadow over the future of a family and even covers marriage and more and yet the love for the family is still very much felt.

Thai Spirits and Wanting to Belong by J A W McCarthy – this essay explores a half Thai and half white woman and her feeing over where she belongs. Growing up being felt to be other by various people she meets and not herself knowing her own culture and background. Her relationship with her Thai mother is fascinating a woman who pushed her to follow   a white identity – Catholicism, food and even on application forms. But this approach made McCarthy eventually seek out more and horror assists that and allows exploration of the racism in America her mother tried to protect her from and now means McCarthy is still exploring more of her hidden past

Lucky Numbers, Or Why 28> 58 by Eliza Chan – this essay explores how even now superstitions over the power of numbers still covers today from little things like house numbers to when even a wedding can take place. A wry but informative essay exploring how this can cover so many aspects of life and each little number explains even more of certain ideas on love, family and wealth and even lead to arguments over what people can do still today!

Hungry Ghosts In America by Vanessa Fogg  -this also explores the hungry ghosts idea but this time with Fogg exploring their relationship with their parents who always have seemed to disapprove of their various life choices not fitting in with her Thai family traditions and expectations.  Fogg explores deeper family histories which help explain why people act as they do and what this means for their own future choices as a writer. It’s a very poignant and bittersweet tale.

100 Livers by K P Kulski – a very memorable tale starting with the tragic death of Kulski’sm other and how her white father kept her away from her Korean family afterwards and hid her from her own culture. Here Kulski links her need to find out more about who she is and where she comes form with the fox spirit the kumiho that eats hearts of its victims to become human. How being a person prevented from knowing herself and often being forced to be seen as a white person by family members made her feel other too and this has impacted their own future work.

Plant A Cherry Tree Over My Grave by Kiyomi Appleton Gaines – this tale explores a woman who has realised she does want a child and how that reconciles against a whole family and cultural tradition that women must become mothers. How usually in Japanese society the only role that fits such a person is the yamauba – the mountain witch which is really telling of how such women are judged. It’s a great piece of writing exploring Gaines’ own thoughts; worries and discussions with family and friends and though a man I can recognise certain conversations I’ve had over never wanting to become a parent.

Belonging to Fear by Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito – Ippolito talks about their grandmother Popo who came with the family to Alabama from China and at a young age loved to watch American horror movies on VHS at home with their very young granddaughter. This story explores how the joy of horror is that it can help empower us to take a moment from the fears we have in the past and the events that led to Popo’s emigration from China and her fear of strangers at the door get explained and make us review events in a slightly different way and is probably my favourite in the collection.

Unquiet Spirits is just a brilliant and thoughtful read. All the essays are worth reading and although some explore similar myths there are fresh and different perspectives in each one. It explores how horror is such a valuable part of exploring what being human is and how we can always reassess myths as to what they mean to us now. Strongly recommended!