Groundbreaking horror novel gets its due
‘The Between’ is being welcomed into a world very different from 1995
Tananarive Due’s groundbreaking horror novel “The Between” was not an easy sell when it was released in 1995. The story of an African-American judge and her family who are terrorized by a white supremacist, the novel was ahead of its time in dealing with the fractures undermining a supposedly racially integrated America. The story’s unapologetic embrace of horror tropes — the main character travels between multiple planes of reality — also scared away critics, academics, and other readers who considered themselves too “serious” to read genre fiction.
Due has since published several novels, written screenplays with her husband Stephen Barnes, co-produced the celebrated documentary “Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror,” and won the American Book Award, the NAACP Image Award, and the British Fantasy Award. The Star spoke with Due about her first novel, her family, and how things have and haven’t changed for marginalized creators.
Q: How did you become a horror fan?
A: I had no choice! My late mother, Patricia Stevens Due, was a civil rights activist and the first horror fan in my life. As a college student in Florida in 1960, she was tear-gassed in the face during a peaceful march in Tallahassee. That physical trauma — she had to wear dark glasses 80 per cent of the time for the rest of her life — left such a mark on her that I’ve come to realize that she used horror to leech out all that trauma and all those monsters. She was always watching horror movies when I was growing up, and she gave me my first Stephen King novel when I was sixteen: “The Shining.” I was off to the races.
In your new preface to “The Between,” you talk about interviewing Anne Rice when you were a young journalist. Why was that such a transformative
experience?
In college, I had started writing stories with white characters as protagonists. The experience of college and exposure to the canon also exposed me to this disdain for genre that seemed pretty universal. I was having a kind of crisis of identity. So when I interviewed Anne Rice [a few years later], I asked her what she thought of the critics who wondered why she was wasting her talent writing
about vampires. She just laughed off this question and said, “When you write about the supernatural you can write about all the big themes: death, life, love.” The light bulb went on! ‘This is who I am,’ I thought. From there, I had to read Black genre writers to make me realize that I could be part of a pantheon of Black literature and also write horror. I was discovering that since I was Black, it would be better to write about my own experiences and insights.
What inspired you to write “The Between?”
It was hurricane Andrew in 1992. I was lucky not to have a lot of damage in my townhouse in Florida, but my mother’s house was damaged, my grandmother’s house, my aunt’s. Mile after mile of neighbourhoods were just flattened by winds. You couldn’t even recognize some of the streets. That was, as we say in writing circles, the inciting incident. I felt like I had walked into a different reality, which gave me the idea for the novel.
In your preface, you also write about the absence of substantial Black characters in horror. Do you think that’s changed since you wrote “The Between?”
I genuinely believe that there has been and will continue to be genuine progress. But it is something that all of us need to keep an eye on. And by all of us I mean as creators, as publishers, as executives, as journalists. Difference and novelty is essential for horror fans, so when you add specific storylines and myths that are outside of the European mythology we’ve seen play out again and again — it’s a little extra seasoning that gives you extra goosebumps! In that way, inclusion is just smart for everyone who loves reading scary stories. It’s also profitable for businesses to support marginalized creators.
Was there a particular catalyst for that change?
I really can’t overstate the impact of Jordan Peele’s (horror movie) “Get Out” on all marginalized creators. I won’t say it single-handedly opened the door for us, but I know what it was like trying to pitch Black horror pre-“Get Out,” especially to Hollywood executives. When you pitched them you’d either get blank faces or them saying, “That’s great, but do the characters have to be Black?” There was no thought that a Black character could represent an Everyman or Everyperson in a story. After “Get Out,” the executives had a vocabulary to discuss Black horror.
Why do you think horror so important to so many people?
It offers a way to comment on the world we live in through the lens of the fantastic. To comment on that world in a literal way is too close to home, and maybe too heavy-handed. Genre allows you to find that necessary distance to comment. We all recognize the monsters in our lives, but sometimes it just takes that perfect horror or science fiction novel to make us see what it is.