Tsalagi should never have to live on human blood, but sometimes things just happen to sixteen-year-old girls.

p. 5

Introduction

Y’all.

Y’all.

I am so pumped up about this book. In her YA debut, Andrea L. Rogers (Cherokee) has come out absolutely swinging. Man Made Monsters is a collection of short horror stories spanning generations of a Cherokee family. Starting in the 1830’s and moving into the future, it’s a wonder of a book – it’s perfectly gory, scary, and astonishingly loving at the same time. Let’s get into it below.

The Good Stuff

The Story

The subheading ‘the story’ here is a little inaccurate although not by too much – this book is a collection of stories, although it follows family members from year to year. The book kicks off with a family tree that ties each story into another. We start off at the very beginning in “An Old-Fashioned Girl” with Ama, the Tsalagi that the quote above is talking about. In this we are treated to a riff off of Bram Stoker’s classic Dracula but with Rogers’ interpretation and polish. After gaining immortality in an extremely traumatic way, Ama leaves us with an intensity that carries throughout the rest of the book throughout generations of her family.

The rest of the stories cross generations. Ama makes a few more appearances as she watches over her family (while intervening as necessary), but the focus is on both reinterpretations of classic monster stories as well as on uniquely Indigenous horrors in the context of one family tree. Rogers’ identity and background as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation strongly informs her work throughout this book – it’s such a special way to see familiar stories like Frankenstein and the Creature From the Black Lagoon remixed. I mention this because I didn’t realize at first, but Rogers includes back matter explaining the influences on some of the stories. It makes re-reading this book over and over again special, especially if you’re a horror fan. If you’re not, then this is not only an incredible stand-alone work, but one that will return to you again and again as you explore classic monster movies and horror tropes.

I mentioned that this book was loving earlier, and I need to reiterate it here. It’s not necessarily fair to Rogers to say that this book is only horror when so much of this book relies on the connections between family members. The last two stories in particular (“I Come from the Water” and “The Zombies Attack the Drive-In!”) focus on the Wilson/Stone family in the far future. These stories are longer than many of the other stories – they highlight the love and connection between the immediate family members in the story and how the strength of the family’s connection to itself has allowed them to survive centuries. Keep this in mind as you read this book – Rogers is showing us the power of Indigenous resilience in the face of mundane and supernatural horrors, and it’s a wallop of an ending to a powerful book.

I’m definitely gushing here – this book was so special to read. It’s sometimes tough to be an Indigenous horror fan as the “Indian burial ground” thing is such a tired and gross trope that is all-to-real for many, many Indigenous communities. (If it did exist, a lot more museums, universities, and private collectors would be way more haunted than they are now.) Every element of the book’s design supports what Rogers is trying to tell us. Rogers has shown us with Man Made Monsters just what exactly is possible in the intersection of an Indigenous worldview and a love for scariness.

The Art

We can’t talk about this book without talking about Jeff Edwards’ art, too. His striking visuals catch you from the very beginning before you even open the book. The anatomical heart on the cover is accentuated with words in Cherokee syllabary – it’s full of meaning, and with the glossary to help you out at the back of the book, you can gain a better understanding of how Edwards’ art works with Rogers’ stories. If you’re willing to do the work, you can get an even better understanding of Edwards’ illustrations by using the Cherokee Nation’s word list and syllabary chart. Full disclosure that I’ve started doing this and while it might be a little time-consuming, I have to re-read the stories now because I’m getting even MORE spooked than I was before!

In Summary

I’m in love with this book. There has been a beautiful surge in Indigenous horror stories – this is another shining star in the constellation. This book is highly recommended.

Man Made Monsters is written by Andrea L. Rogers (Cherokee) and illustrated by Jeff Edwards (Cherokee). It’s published by Levine Querido, linked here for your purchasing convenience. 🙂 As always, gichi miigwech for reading!