The Things That Fly in the Night: Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora

313 Pages·2015·5.93 MB·English

by  Giselle Liza Anatol

The Things That Fly in the Night

The Things That Fly
in the Night
Female Vampires in Literature of the
Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora
giselle liza anatol
Rutgers University Press
new brunswick, new jersey, and london
library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Anatol, Giselle Liza, 1970– author.
The things that fly in the night : female vampires in literature of the Circum-Caribbean
and African diaspora / Giselle Liza Anatol.
pages cm. — (Critical Caribbean studies) (American literatures initiative)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8135-6574-3 (hardback)
ISBN (invalid) 978-0-8135-6573-6 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-8135-6575-0 (e-book)
1. Caribbean literature—History and criticism. 2. Literature—Black authors—History
and criticism. 3. Vampires in literature. 4. Tales—Caribbean Area. 5. African diaspora.
I. Title.
PN849.C3A54 2015
809’.89729—dc 3
2014017496
A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available
from the British Library.
Copyright © 2015 by Giselle Liza Anatol
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106
Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair
use” as defined by U.S. copyright law.
Visit our website: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu
Manufactured in the United States of America
A book in the American Literatures Initiative (ALI), a collaborative
publishing project of NYU Press, Fordham University Press, Rutgers
University Press, Temple University Press, and the University of Virginia
Press. The Initiative is supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
For more information, please visit www.americanliteratures.org.
To Dee, who keeps me grounded but also pushes me to fly

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
1 Conventional Versions: The Soucouyant Story in Folktales,
Fiction, and Calypso 35
2 Nineteenth-Century Connections: European Vampire
Stories and Configurations of the Demonic Black Woman 86
3 Draining Life Rather than Giving It: Maternal Legacies 125
4 “Queering” the Norm: Vampirism and Women’s Sexuality 159
5 Reconstructing a Nation of Strangers: Soucouyants
in the Work of Tessa McWatt, David Chariandy,
and Helen Oyeyemi 189
6 Shedding Skin and Sucking Blood: Playing with Notions
of Racial Intransigence 221
Conclusions 253
Notes 265
Works Cited 273
Index 291

Preface
I grew up in suburban New Jersey, but my dreams were haunted by the
soucouyant. According to the stories shared by my Trinidadian aunts,
mother, and grandmothers, the soucouyant seemed to be an ordinary
old woman by day. Each night, however, she shed her skin, transformed
herself into a ball of fire, flew about the community, and sucked the
blood of her unsuspecting neighbors. Afterward, she would return
home and slip back into her skin, and the repeated practice made her
human form unusually wrinkled. She would not be able to re-don her
outer membrane, however, if someone had discovered its secret hiding
place and salted or peppered it; this would cause the soucouyant to per-
ish in a frenzy of itching and burning. She could also be destroyed by
scattering salt or rice on the doorsteps and windowsills of one’s house:
she might be able to enter the premises to satisfy her bloodlust, but she
was obligated to count each grain before leaving. At dawn, if neighbors
caught her in the midst of her task, they would beat her to death or
drop her into a vat of boiling tar or oil; some storytellers alleged that
the rising sun would destroy the skinless incarnation of the creature.
(In one instance—the version found in Edgar Mittelhölzer’s novel A
Morning in Trinidad—the soucouyant has to bend down so low, for so
long, to pick up every grain of rice, that she breaks her back and dies.)
In any case, the phrase “soucouyant gon’ come for you” has chilled the
blood of Trinidadian children for generations—and not just those who
misbehaved: anyone’s blood could lure the soucouyant into their home.