Robert D San Souci mostly wrote children’s books. In fact, he wrote the story that Disney based the movie Milan on. He loved the folkish type tales from around the world and would incorporate those themes into his stories. So, how does this children’s author handle a very adult African themed voodoo-ish horror novel?
Blood Offerings is about a middle-aged black woman named, Suzanne, who becomes haunted by her witchy deceased grandma through a series of nightmares. She is in a bloodline of witch ladies who worship the African demon deity Shango from which they do evil shit and he gives them powers. Grandma is passing her the torch and at first, she’s kind of spooked but by the second chapter she’s all in.
She reconnects with her estranged sister and nephew in San Francisco. Also in San Francisco is evil rich white guy who destroys African nations to get its resources on the cheap. Typical. He has two teenager children from his white ex-wife but mostly he dates black women. He’s a prick, it’s a given. In his employ is some mafia type thug and this woman who works for him, whom he is also banging. Jokes on him though because she’s undercover. At first, I thought she was a reporter but by the end I had it wrong, so I don’t know where I got confused but it happens. His thoughts and feelings happen for a chapter and then mostly it’s the viewpoint of the undercover lady. It’s obvious he’s going to be the target of Shango loving Suzanne. But why?
I almost quit reading this book so many times. It was sooo boring for the first 150 pages. A bunch of shit with the sister relationship and the undercover lady feeling guilty about her feelings for banging the evil white guy. Do you ever read a book, get halfway through and can’t comprehend how you went through so many pages, and nothing has happened. Nothing. It got to the point where I would kind of dread picking it up. And FINALLY when something interesting happens they throw in a cat murder. DUDE. Do you know who mostly reads books? Cat people! Fuck. It wasn’t casually mentioned either. It was play by play and gruesome. I was so close to chucking the book across the room.
But I stuck with it.
Finally, some horror type voodoo stuff starts to happen. Suzanne becomes completely unhinged. She mentally manipulates people by imagining a needle going through their brain. I don’t want to give anything away, but it does get a lot better. Dare I say, pretty damn good. There are some weird moments like where this lady pulls her underwear down and starts masturbating for a minute. For no reason. I could see if it was to show Suzanne descending into madness with some random public wanking but it wasn’t. It wasn’t sexy. It was so odd and pointless.
Suzanne really loses all humanity and goes full on serial killer. Brutal fucking gory deaths too. In detail. It also has some really cool old-style zombie going on. Pre-Night of the Living Dead zombies. 30’s era movie zombies. The end is a bloodbath. It was awesome. Other supernatural elements include some Shango time, weather manipulation, psychokinesis and some dream reality crossover. There are quite a few dream sequences in this which I usually hate but they’re pretty short so it didn’t do much damage.
But is it worth it to sit through that tedious beginning? No. If you’re going to read this jump to the 100th page. There really isn’t anything in the beginning that I didn’t just sum up or they rehash later on. The build up is so weak so there isn’t really any tension or feeling you’re missing out on. It’s just a big waste of time.
It was interesting to read this story written by an old white guy about ancient African folklore that featured almost all black characters. Female at that. It was definitely one of those books where you stop and look up the author, like, who is writing this thing? Oh, old white guy, ok. That’s cool.
Leisure Books 1985
Review by Nick Anderson
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