Lone Women

Writer Victor LaValle has earned multiple literary awards, including Shirley Jackson (Big Machine, The Ballad of Black Tom), Bram Stoker (“Up from Slavery”, Victor LaValle's Destroyer), and British Fantasy (The Changeling), among others. He was raised in New York City, holds degrees from Cornell and Columbia, and is an associate professor at the Columbia University School of the Arts. 

I discovered LaValle's work through a buddy read with a friend. She was reading Lone Women, his 2023 novel published by One World. The concept of a fantasy horror western appealed to me, so I took the page plunge.

The book is set in 1915, but contains flashbacks circling back to events in the late 1800s. The protagonist is Adelaide Henry, a young black woman from a California farming family who burns her home down and flees to Montana carrying her family's dark secret in a steamer trunk. She journeys to Big Sandy, Montana, to take up a homestead claim under the Homestead Act's provision that allows single women to claim land. Adelaide is looking to disappear into the anonymity of the wild frontier. 

Needless to say, the harsh environment, grueling labor, and the obligatory western tropes force Adelaide into tough decision-making. She aligns herself with Big Sandy's women's community, rough 'n tough characters that take Adelaide under their wing. Together, the group faces a patriarchal power structure in the Reeds, the town's leading family. They control the local business and are linked to a vigilante group called the Stranglers. Violence, mayhem, and racist motivation leads to an inevitable confrontation between Adelaide's “lone women” and Big Sandy's corrupt establishment. But Adelaide's secret in the trunk is the ultimate wild card. 

I struggled with my review for this book. The reason is simple – I can't give away the big reveal. What makes this novel a horror-fantasy mish-mash is the thing in the trunk, Adelaide's dark secret. It's a mystery that provokes bewilderment, curiosity, and anticipation as the reader can only speculate what the thing is. The mood and atmosphere are exceptional, the characters are eccentric and entertaining, and the pace was perfectly balanced to allow the mystery to neatly entwine with the propulsive action. I've never read a book quite like it, although comparisons could be made to David Sodergren's The Haar, a 2022 folky Scottish horror novella that features some of the same elements. 

If you want something completely different, try Lone Women. Highly recommended, get it HERE.