The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural

McKissack, P. (1992). The Dark Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural. New York, NY: Alfred K Knopf, Inc.

This is a collection of spooky stories set in the backdrop of the southern states. Most of the stories deal with a protagonists, who are black, exacting revenge on antagonists, who are white.  The revenge comes after the black characters have died due to the white characters' selfishness or evilness. It comes in the form of hauntings by the ghosts of these protagonists.  Slaves escaping from plantation, men being wrongly blamed by the KKK, slaves creating voodoo dolls to harm their masters, these are some of the plots in these stories. There are some stories that deal with childhood fears like haunted chicken coops, evil spirits entering houses, and imaginary conjured brothers. The settings take the readers from pre emancipation to the civil right era.  This book won Author's Award for the year. The writing isn't that spectacular. It is pretty straight forward with not a lot of build up but they are short stories. If they were longer they could be their own novel.  I was expecting something a lot more suspenseful but this was written over twenty-five years ago.  My expectations for spooky have been shaped by a lot of paranormal and horror films over the years. It is a change to see African-Americans get revenge on racist characters.