Believable Magic: A Review of The Good House, Tananarive Due

By June Pulliam

01/17/2005

Due, Tananarive. The Good House. New York: Atria Books, 2003. 479 p.

It's difficult these days to go to a big commercial bookstore and browse the horror titles, as some of them, such as Barnes and Noble, have completely eliminated their horror section. Why? Because many authors complained about the infamy of having their books shelved in this section with the likes of V. C. Andrews and Dean Koontz, and feared that their work would be mistaken for the hackish drivel these authors churn out. And though I have a love for the genre, I can understand the hesitancy of other authors to have their works shelved in this category.  There are some excellent contemporary writers of horror fiction, but there are also some dreadful practitioners who unfortunately define the parameters of the genre by their strict adherence to convention, due to a lack of imagination. In short, they make horror silly rather than scary. 

Tananarive Due is one of those rare writers who can incorporate the supernatural into her writing without making it appear silly. Her latest novel, The Good House, is fairly typical of her work in this regard. Angela Toussaint is a successful Hollywood agent who returns to her childhood home in Sacagawea, Washington, accompanied by her teenaged son Corey. The house belonged to her grandmother, Marie Toussaint, legendary for her healing powers, especially her abilities with medicinal herb teas. Angela, a divorced mother with custody of Corey in the summers, hopes that the house has retained some of her grandmother's powers and will somehow heal her fractured family. And the summer holds such promise. After complaining bitterly about being stuck alone in a hick town during his school vacation, Corey makes a friend in Sacagawea. And when Angela's estranged husband and Corey's father, Tariq, appears, years of bitter fighting erode as they seem to remember what first brought them together. But everything falls to pieces when Corey inexplicably shoots himself with his father's handgun, a weapon that Tariq swore to Angela that he disposed of several years previously.

A wedge is permanently been drawn between Angela and Tariq, whom she blames for Corey's death. Any good associations Angela had with her grandmother's house are likewise destroyed, and it's three years before she can bring herself to return. Upon her arrival, she senses that the house is more unwell than ever. A houseguest's dog disappears in the middle of the night from behind a locked door. A neighbor who comes to gather herbs on the property soon after deliberately walks into a truck. A town bully disappears after playing paint ball in the surrounding woods.

These strange events lead Angela to uncover her grandmother's mysterious past. Marie was more than the town wise woman, adept at using herbs to heal. Born in New Orleans, Marie was a voodoo priestess, favored by the ancestral spirits and the gods, who endowed her with great powers of healing. These ethereal beings that led her to Sacagawea with its powerful sacred land also used by the Native Americans used to bury their dead. But Marie grew vain of her powers, and eventually offended the gods when she tried to possess the land rather than being merely content to have access to its strength. The magnitude of her offense becomes apparent when she is called upon to save the dying child of one of the town's people.

As one of Sacagawea's few black residents, Marie's presence is barely tolerated.  Upon her arrival, she works as the housekeeper to pharmacist Elijah Goode (hence the name of the house, and the novel, Good House, a corruption of the original owner's name) in the house that she will eventually inherit from her employer. Marie concocts the teas for Elijah to sell, making him, and her, wealthy. Three years later Elijah dies, and the town is not pleased to see a black woman legally inherit the property of a white man. In 1929, when a mudslide destroys much of Sacagawea while leaving the Goode House unscathed, residents believe Marie has sinister powers. But fear changes to respect when Marie heals child dying of a mysterious ailment. As the child is suffering from possession rather than any physical ailment, Marie uses her influence with the gods rather than her knowledge of herbs to save her. But saving the child comes at a great price. Suddenly, her own daughter is taken ill, and will grow up to become a chronically depressed adult who eventually commits suicide.

Marie now understands that she has offended the gods, and rightfully fears using magic any further lest others be harmed. Thus, unlike her own grandmother, she doesn't initiate her daughter or granddaughter into the mysteries of Voodon (the proper name of the Voodoo religion). But Marie hopes that one of her line will eventually be heir to the knowledge that is rightfully theirs once the wrath of the gods cools. Thus, she leaves hidden in the house a book of instructions on the secret rites, hoping that one of her descendants will use it to resume the family tradition. But Sacaweaja is a powerful place, and Marie's misuse of magic doesn't go away over time. Instead, the Goode House and property surrounding it are a sort of spiritual superfund site in need of cleaning.  When the teenaged Corey rather than the adult Angela finds Marie's secret grimoire, it is as dangerous as if he has found a loaded handgun, since in typical teen fashion, he is eager to use this magic to his own ends without taking the necessary precautions first. Thus, Corey awakens sleeping spirits that continue to claim the lives of various townspeople, and Angela must now figure out how to undo what was done.

Due has that rare ability to make the supernatural not seem silly. That's because she represents supernatural events as not being that far from reality. The connection between the living and the dead isn't that unbelievable. Angela is able to invoke her grandmother's spirit in everyday ways: she cooks her grandmother's recipes and uses her dishes, and has running conversations with her in her head. Thus it is not so surprising when Angela comes to believe that her grandmother is actually present in spirit, guiding her hand in all that she does. Possession, likewise, is represented as believable rather than silly. When Angela's ex-husband Tariq is possessed by the baka, an evil trickster spirit, he hasn't gone that far from the obsessive person with an anger management problem he was before his body was taken over by an entity that wants to hurt Marie's descendants. Even before this possession, Tariq admits to himself that sometimes he thought about just taking his gun and shutting up Angela for good. Due also address that question plaguing all whose writing involves the supernatural: how can a person in the 21st century accept the existence of that which cannot be verified through science? Angela is an educated, rational woman who understandably finds herself exceedingly skeptical at first when supernatural forces seem to be behind all the recent bloodshed in Sacagawea. It takes her a very long time before she readily comes to accept the truth of the situation. And other characters, who nevertheless believe that a supreme being intervenes in human affairs, are likewise unable to accept ideas such as the existence of evil spirits or the efficacy of magic.

But perhaps most convincing of all is Due's use of history to represent the supernatural. As Angela comes to accept the presence of the supernatural in her life, she also learns the complex history of her family and its relationship to others. It is this history, this hidden connection, with both her ancestors and with whites and Native Americans in the area, that constitutes the supernatural in its very power to haunt. As I read The Good House, I kept thinking about Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, and indeed, the two books are similar in that they both explore the power of history to haunt us, whether we are actively trying to suppress something unpleasant or we are completely unaware of its presence. Nevertheless, that history has an almost supernatural quality in its immense power to shape us.

Tananarive Due's novels:

The Good House. New York: Atria Books, 2003.

The Living Blood. New York, Pocket Books, 2001.

The sequel to Due's 1997 novel My Soul To Keep, The Living Blood follows Jessica Jacobs-Wolde, hiding in Botswana with her only surviving child after her husband, the immortal David Wolde, killed their other child in an attempt to pass his living blood along to her. Instead, David only succeeded in altering Jessica's blood. And since Jessica was pregnant at the time when her blood was changed, she has given birth to a new race of immortal who must be taught to control her special powers.

The Black Rose. New York: Ballantine, 2000.

The only of Due's novels not to employ the supernatural. The Black Rose follows the life of America's first black millionaire, 19th century cosmetics mogul Madame C. J. Walker.

My Soul to Keep. New York: HarperPrism, 1997.

David Wolde, an African immortal, has incited the wrath of his brothers when he has dared to love a mortal and have children with her. For the brotherhood, remaining among humans for too long could lead to their exposure since their inability to age can be noticed. Modern science also makes the brotherhood of immortals vulnerable to exposure, as their blood is so different from that of mortals. David must fight to protect the family the brotherhood has threatened to destroy.

The Between. HarperCollins, 1995.

Thirty years ago, Hilton James was saved from drowning by his grandmother, who perished in the attempt. Now he is a secure middle class professional, a social worker married to a judge. But when his wife begins receiving mysterious death threats, Hilton experiences nightmares that lead him into an alternate reality, suggesting that perhaps he wasn't meant to survive in the water that day, and has instead, been living on borrowed time.

Tananarive Due's Official Website