Curdle Creek

September 1, 2024
Osira is a 45-year-old widow who lives in Curdle Creek, a remote Black community with a vast array of traditions and rituals. In order to adhere to a "one in, one out" policy of population control, residents nominate their neighbors to be "Moved On" in an annual Shirley Jackson-inspired frenzy of rocks and sticks. Osira has been a model citizen despite private doubts, but when her beloved father is called to be Moved On, it sets in motion a series of events that lead to her jumping into a well and traveling through space and time. Osira had heard stories about Well Walkers since she was a child but never realized they were real--or that she was one. Subsequent jumps bring her to other communities and realms, though the abrupt ending leaves her ultimate fate in question. While it obviously owes a lot to "The Lottery" and would appeal to Jackson's fans, the strong world building and genre-bending action would also make it a good fit for readers who enjoyed Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country (2016), Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad (2016), or P. Dj�l� Clark's Ring Shout (2022).

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October 1, 2024

It's 1960 in Curdle Creek, an all-Black community surrounded by a violent world. Since the late 1800s, Curdle Creek has been a safe haven for its residents, but that safety comes at a steep price: belief in and obedience to a complex set of rituals, including the "Moving On," the annual sacrifice of one townsperson for the prosperity of all. Battle-Felton (Remembered) meticulously and compellingly builds the world of Curdle Creek. Osira is both an outsider and part of the establishment--45 years old, living alone since her husband was "Moved On" and her children disappeared; she's also the daughter of one of the matriarchs who rule Curdle Creek. As Osira begins to actively question whether the town's protection is worth its vicious rules, she gets swept away on a journey into the past to look for answers. A thought-provoking, cautionary tale that not only refuses to provide easy answers, but also actively asks readers to question their own complicity in our current world. VERDICT Clearly inspired by Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," with a nod as well toward Kindred by Octavia Butler, this is a compelling and immersive story.

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Starred review from October 1, 2024
A woman plans her escape from a Black enclave in this mind-bending allegory. Curdle Creek, the setting of Battle-Felton's second novel, has a population of 201 and is determined to stay small. Founded in 1864 as a refuge from lynching and disease for free Blacks, it's established a series of odd rituals to run smoothly. Some are relatively benign, like a Running of the Widows, where women engage in a cutthroat race for available men; others, like the Moving On, are collective murders of residents in the name of population control and (the legend goes) fruitful harvests. But Osira Turner, the novel's middle-aged narrator, is bristling against Curdle Creek's ceremonies, having lost the Running of the Widows and learned her father has been selected for the Moving On. The debt to Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is obvious, but Battle-Felton is drawing from a deeper well of influences, including Toni Morrison's lyricism, the time-travel elements of Octavia E. Butler'sKindred and the alternative universe of Colson Whitehead'sThe Underground Railroad. Osira's investigations into the roots of Curdle Creek's ceremonies unlock a series of surprising, sometimes hallucinatory plot turns--the mysterious death of one of the town elders, a well that's a portal into the town's history--but Battle-Felton imagines this world exceedingly well. And she never loses sight of the novel's central theme: how the need for communities to protect themselves unleashes its own anxieties and traumas. "Our ways are what save us--protecting usfrom them and from beinglike them," Osira notes. But the death, loss, ghosts, and trials (literal and figurative) that she faces suggest that no amount of structure and doctrine can fully protect a community. The novel's somber tone is firmly gothic, but it's also richly open to interpretation. Sharp speculative fiction, casting a skeptical eye on insular communities of all sorts.

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