Devour

May 15, 2024
As their grandmother's dementia worsens, Demetrius and Patsy's father moves them all to his ancestral Louisiana home, where teenage Patsy learns that her future is already decided; it is her destiny to keep a vengeance-hungry manifestation of the African god Anansi trapped in his prison and fed by her memories. Driven mad by the inhuman conditions forced upon enslaved Africans, Anansi has been kept at bay by the female Turner descendants, assisted by their hoodoo practices, for generations. A local family hell-bent on taking back what's "theirs" will get more than they bargained for, and Demetrius may have a bigger role to play than anyone could foresee. This modernized spin on the Anansi mythology taps into the scary reality of dementia and the upheaval that it can cause for entire families while weaving a frightening tale compounded by the far-reaching consequences of historical American injustices. Bright, vivid artwork with great texture mixes standardized layouts with more loose, immersive pages. There are many threads to untangle in this web, though readers will long for more information about several situations and some characters (especially Anansi and the kids' mother).

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May 20, 2024
A lineage of Louisiana women imprison the African spider god Anansi in this unnerving if overwrought horror-folkore debut from Joyner and Pugh. The opening pages retell how Anansi long ago dispensed wisdom to jungle animals from a “large clay pot,” but when his advice that “the harder the chase, the better the catch” resulted in a leopard’s death, her cub vowed revenge. That fable looms over the present-day story of teenager Patsy Turner, her father Marcus, and her two brothers, all of whom move in with their dementia-stricken grandmother, Vassie. When Anansi stalks Patsy’s dreams, Vassie reveals that the Turner women are rootworkers who’ve bound the trickster god to their land. Vassie trains Patsy in hoodoo (folk magic and medicine) after school, unleashing the girl’s “magick,” which was originally taught to an enslaved Turner ancestor by Anansi and has been passed down from mother to daughter through the generations. The overuse of flashbacks and layered-on exposition bloats an intricate—if at times predictable—plot. Pugh’s artwork, however, is a highlight—his rendering of Anansi elicits gut-churning dread. After many twists and turns in the family’s story, including details of how the leopard cub “tricked the trickster,” Joyner teases the next installment in the series. But readers may not have the patience to stick around for more. Agent: (for Joyner) Anjali Singh, Ayesha Pande Literary.