Devil's Marionette

by Maurice Broaddus

Death comes for the cast and crew of the hit comedy TV Show Chocolate City, impacting not only their personal lives but the prospect of their show's continued success. As each member sinks into their own past, and the spirits of those that came before, the tragedies continue. Maurice Broaddus weaves a tale of intimate nightmare and dark discovery in a compelling exploration of humanity's relation not only to his own mind and soul, but also to the ghosts of days gone by-personal and ancient. When your terror comes to claim you, who will it be? Nobody.

Genres: Horror, Fiction

91 pages, Paperback

First published May 4, 2009

Reviews

[Michele Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a mental list of movies I've seen, and I don't regret seeing them, but I never want to see them again. What Dreams May Come, Philadelphia, A.I and Funny Games all have their places on this list. Slowly I'm forming a list of books that I've enjoyed and would recommend, but never I want to read again. Devil's Marionette by Maurice Broaddus is definitely edging its way onto this list.
There's nothing technically wrong with this novella about the cast of a black skit show/sitcom descending into madness. The characters are raw, pain-filled and clear and the story itself is unfurled with the casual unstopablility of an oncoming freight train.
But there's a weight here that threatens to crush the reader as well as the characters.
Broaddus's novella starts right at the end of things and offers little in the way of background, or explanation, instead focusing on each individual breakdown of an otherwise talented and intelligent black cast. The crew aren't being crushed by the white network bigwig (despite his efforts at dominating them), though, it's their own connection to parasitic performers of the past that pulls them into more than personal darkness. Here it feels like the odds are so astoundingly set against them that defying the curse of the black performer is like trying to defy the laws of physics.
Yet despite this immersive, and painfully open experience of being each character as hundreds of years of hatred and racism crushes down on them, the reader is left with the same feeling as someone who witnesses something beautiful or terribly in a quiet woods. It's almost as if this pain is clear and known, but we are not supposed to speak of it, or even admit that we know it's there.
The aura or spirit of this book far out shadows the actual story within the pages. It's left me feeling not thrilled, or entertained, but uneasy, a perfect tone for a horror novella to strike, but one not that makes experiencing it an entirely pleasant experience.

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hope that another publisher brings back this title from Maurice Broaddus, which takes all the horrors of "Bamboozled," the film from Spike Lee, parts of "Lovecraft Country," and embodies what scholars like P Djeli Clark have discussed with the bringing to life of racial caricatures, which is grotesque and horrifying. With an engaging story that centers Black characters, including Kevon who faces a unique pressure. Like Black performers before him including Bert Williams, the Reconstruction Era did not present much in the way of opportunities for African Americans to be entertainers. One of the few choices was to do blackface minstrelsy, and to apply burnt cork as well as other materials in order to blacken one's already Black appearance. This continued into vaudeville and with the far too not-known Broadway show "Shuffle Along" (1921), which was the first Black-run and produced Broadway show featuring Black actors. Although the audiences were segregated in New York, with whites and African Americans separated, they all attended this show. For more on that, I would recommend people read Caseen Gaines's "Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way."

Back to the book in question, "Devil's Marionette" is Black horror at its best. At one point, the racial caricatures that formed so many of the household products that white Americans have never given a second thought to like Aunt Jemima syrup and Uncle Ben's rice come to life in interesting and evocative ways.

highly recommended!

[Paula Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

DEVIL'S MARIONETTE is dubbed a horror story and it did contain the boogeyman but it failed to scare or thrill me. Broaddus focused too much attention on the battle of network executives and producers to get black actors to "clown" themselves for ratings like modern day "Amos and Andy" characters. If more emphasis had been put in enhancing the horror scenes, the fear factor would have been there. It came off as though he was on his soapbox about the issue, which surprisingly is being debated today, and then all of a sudden the ghost would appear and claim a victim. The writing was clear and strong but it failed to make me shake in my boots.