Victor LaValle’s newest book, Lone Women, follows the pilgrimage of 31 year old Adelaide Henry from an all Black community in southern California to the most remote place she could find in southeastern Montana. She takes with her a small suitcase with clothes and personal items… and the largest, heaviest steamer trunk anyone has ever seen. Adelaide soon makes friends with her neighbour Grace and her son Sam. Much like Adelaide’s trunk, they also have a big, heavy secret. As the novel goes on, Adelaide will meet other women, each struggling for survival and autonomy in their own ways on the fringes of civilization. Some of them turn as hard and cold as the world around them. Some of them turn to each other. None of them are quite as alone as they think.

On the surface, this book looks and feels like a Western. (Having read LaValle’s other books, I knew another shoe would drop, and does it ever!) The various episodes which make up the book are familiar to anyone who’s read or seen a Western: bandits, saloons, barn dancing, prominent citizens who’s smiles are as wide as their nefarious plans, horse thieves, vigilante actions, even a hanging and a structure being burned poetically.

However, LaValle is one of the great horror and weird fiction writers of our time. So, nothing is done by the numbers here, starting with that trunk. Locked trunks (metaphorical and actual) shouldn’t be opened; yet locked trunks (metaphorical and actual) simply must be opened. By the time you’re on the last page, there have been monsters, carnage, dark family secrets, unnatural happenings, murders most foul, and deep questions about why we draw societal norms and boundaries where we do.

LaValle is a beautiful writer and storyteller. That’s all vividly on display here. He’s also a master at redrafting and inverting well worn story tropes in ways that explore issues of race, gender, and sexuality. In my opinion, LaValle’s ability to seamlessly infuse the heaviest current issues of our day into his stories is where he goes from being an excellent weird fiction writer to one of the greats of our time. It’s never distracting and always insightful. (For an explicitly Lovecraftian effort along these lines, I highly recommend his 2016 novel The Ballad of Black Tom, based on HPL’s The Horror at Red Hook.)

Lone Women is ultimately a meditation on who gets counted as “in” and who gets counts as “out” in our friend groups, families, towns, and our national public life. It asks why that happens, what its effects are, and offers insights that will surprise more than a few horror fans. It’s well worth your time.

Written by Andrew

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