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Ring Shout

Ring Shout, or, Hunting Ku Kluxes in the End Times is a dark fantasy historical novella written by American author P. Djèlí Clark and published by Tor Nightfire on October 13, 2020. Set in an alternate 1915 United States, the narrative depicts the Ku Klux Klan as supernatural monsters known as "Ku Kluxes," demonic beings summoned through a ritualistic influence tied to the release of the film The Birth of a Nation, which amplifies white supremacist hatred and enables otherworldly incursions. The protagonist, Maryse Boudreaux, a Black woman scarred by a childhood lynching, leads a small resistance group including the fiddler Chefette and the hoodoo practitioner Sadie Taylor, armed with a mystical sword called the Silver Sword forged from meteorite iron. They hunt these entities across the Jim Crow South, drawing on African American folk traditions such as the ring shout—a counterclockwise shuffling circle dance accompanied by spiritual call-and-response singing and clapping—as a form of counter-magic to repel demonic forces and reclaim spiritual agency. The plot culminates in efforts to thwart a Klan-orchestrated end-times ritual at Stone Mountain, Georgia, blending historical events like the film's premiere and Klan resurgence with Lovecraftian horror elements, where hatred itself manifests as an eldritch entity seeking apocalyptic dominion. The novella received critical acclaim for its fusion of with unflinching examinations of American racial violence, earning the for Best Novella in 2021, the for Best Novella, and the , alongside nominations for the and . Clark, a by training who incorporates empirical details from the era's social upheavals, uses the supernatural framework to explore causal links between cultural artifacts like D.W. Griffith's film—which empirically spurred Klan membership growth from thousands to millions post-1915—and cycles of terror, without altering verifiable historical timelines but amplifying them through fantasy. Its compact 185-page length and vivid action sequences, including sword fights against shape-shifting horrors, distinguish it as a brisk yet thematically dense work in the Afrofuturist tradition.

Publication History

Author Background

P. Djèlí Clark, born Dexter Gabriel on June 11, 1971, in , New York, to immigrant parents from , spent his formative early years in Trinidad before being raised primarily in , . He pursued studies in and at , where faculty recognized his analytical aptitude in historical analysis. Clark earned a in and holds the position of assistant professor at the , focusing his research on comparative slavery and processes across the Atlantic World. His scholarship encompasses , tracing migrations, cultural exchanges, and dynamics involving African-descended populations in the and beyond, which informs his integration of verifiable historical contexts into narrative works. Under the pen name , he established himself in prior to with novellas such as The Black God's Drums (2018), set in an alternate 19th-century New Orleans blending and Afro-Caribbean elements, and The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (2019), part of a series featuring investigations in an alt-historical . These publications demonstrate his signature method of merging empirical historical foundations—drawn from his academic expertise—with fantastical and motifs, enabling explorations of alternate timelines rooted in experiences.

Release and Editions

Ring Shout was initially published as a standalone in by Tor Nightfire, an imprint of .com Publishing, on October 13, 2020. The edition comprised 185 pages and was released alongside a digital version. A edition appeared on October 14, 2025, under the same publisher with 9781250393814 and 192 pages. No substantive revisions or variant texts have been documented across formats.

Awards and Recognition

Ring Shout won the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 2021, presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America for works published in 2020. It also secured the Locus Award for Best Novella in 2021, as voted by readers of Locus magazine. The novella received the Alex Award in 2021 from the American Library Association's Young Adult Library Services Association, recognizing adult books appealing to teen readers. Additionally, it won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novella in 2021, awarded by the British Fantasy Society. The work was nominated for the in the category in 2021. featured on multiple "best of" lists for 2020 , including NPR's Books We Love selection and Locus magazine's recommended reading.

Plot Summary

Setting and Premise

is set in 1922 , during the era and the resurgence of the second , amid economic transitions following and widespread screenings of D.W. Griffith's 1915 film , which historically fueled the Klan's revival by glorifying its antebellum predecessor. The narrative unfolds in the Jim Crow South, where and lynchings were rampant, reflecting the real historical context of heightened white supremacist activity in the early . In this , the film's racist depictions serve as a conduit for entities from an otherworldly realm, summoned by collective hatred and manifesting as demonic "Ku Kluxes"—inhuman abominations that possess white individuals and amplify the Klan's terror. This premise fuses Lovecraftian cosmic horror, emphasizing incomprehensible ancient evils, with the tangible atrocities of American racial violence, positing ideology as a literal to supernatural malevolence. Opposing these forces are magical defenses drawn from African American folk traditions, including rootwork conjurations and spiritual rituals adapted from Gullah-Geechee practices, wielded through artifacts like silver blades to exploit the entities' vulnerabilities. These countermeasures evoke historical resistance strategies, grounding the conflict in cultural against .

Key Events and Resolution

Maryse Boudreaux, along with her companions Sadie Watkins and Cordelia "Chef" Lawrence, initially conducts targeted hunts against individual Ku Kluxes—demonic entities possessing Ku Klux Klan members—in Macon, Georgia, using traps and Maryse's ancestral silver sword empowered by Gullah spirits. These operations escalate as the group uncovers that screenings of the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation serve as rituals propagating the demonic influence, swelling Klan ranks and strengthening the entities' hold. After consulting Nana Jean, who performs a Ring Shout ritual revealing visions of an ancient hate-entity called the Grand Cyclops, the hunters recognize the need to target the source rather than isolated foes. The conflict intensifies when Butcher Clyde, a powerful Ku Klux enforcer, launches an assault on Frenchy's , killing and abducting others to draw Maryse out, exploiting her unresolved trauma from her family's murder by the Klan. Devastated, Maryse confronts her inner rage with the aid of the —undead enforcers of justice—restoring her sword's power but highlighting group strains as and surviving allies grapple with grief and the risks of retaliation. United by shared resolve, they resolve to disrupt a massive Klan rally at , where the Knights of Liberty plan a grand screening and invocation to fully manifest the Grand Cyclops. At the rally, Butcher Clyde summons the towering Grand Cyclops, offering Maryse alliance in exchange for her submission to hatred, which she rejects, igniting ritualistic combat. Maryse wields her against the entity while Nana Jean's invokes spirits of victims and the , overwhelming the Ku Klux hordes and capturing the Grand Cyclops after slaying Butcher Clyde. This victory scatters the immediate demonic forces but underscores the persistence of hatred's seeds, as an epilogue reveals the aunties warning Maryse of a rising dark magician in , compelling her to retain the perilous for ongoing vigilance.

Historical and Cultural Inspirations

The Ring Shout Tradition

The ring shout emerged as a religious practice among enslaved Gullah people in the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina, with detailed observations recorded by outsiders during the Civil War era from 1861 to 1865. Participants formed a circle and moved counterclockwise in a shuffling motion, keeping their feet on the ground without lifting them, accompanied by rhythmic clapping, stamping, and call-and-response singing of spirituals. This foot-shuffling rule adhered to strict interpretations of biblical prohibitions against dancing, allowing the ritual to persist within Protestant worship contexts. Rooted in West and Central African dance traditions, the incorporated syncretic elements by overlaying indigenous circular rhythms and communal trance-inducing movements onto Christian hymns and Bible-based lyrics, fostering ecstasy and cultural continuity under enslavement. Historical accounts, including those in slave narratives from the 1930s, describe the practice as a core expression of slave , where shouters achieved heightened states through repetitive chants and motion, often leading to improvised "running" or ecstatic outbursts. In P. Djèlí Clark's Ring Shout, the tradition is fictionalized as a magical system wherein the collective energy of shouters channels rootwork and ancestral power to combat entities embodying hatred, reflecting the historical shout's function as a form of communal resistance and against . This adaptation grounds supernatural efficacy in the ritual's documented role in preserving African-derived amid forced , portraying the shout's rhythmic harmony as a literal counterforce to discord and evil.

The Birth of a Nation's Historical Impact

D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, released on February 8, 1915, in Los Angeles and broadly in March 1915, adapted Thomas Dixon Jr.'s novel The Clansman to glorify the original Ku Klux Klan as defenders of white Southern honor while portraying African Americans during Reconstruction as barbaric and sexually predatory. This revisionist depiction distorted historical events, omitting the Klan's role in terrorist violence against freed slaves and Republicans, and instead framed it as a chivalric response to alleged black misrule. The film's nationwide screenings directly spurred the formation of the second Ku Klux Klan on November 25, 1915, when William J. Simmons and associates refounded the group atop , inspired by its climactic Klan rally scene, including the introduction of cross burnings. This revival expanded the organization's reach beyond the , incorporating nativist opposition to Catholic and Jewish immigrants, with membership surging to an estimated 4 to 5 million by the mid-1920s through recruitment rallies mimicking the film's spectacles. Screenings provoked immediate unrest, including riots in cities such as in April 1915, where clashes between protesters and resulted in arrests and injuries, and nationwide bloodshed tied to Klan events. Economic analyses indicate spikes in lynchings and race riots in counties hosting the film's roadshow from 1915 to 1919, though causal attribution remains debated due to small sample sizes and confounding factors like World War I-era tensions. Such effects underscore the film's role in ideologically amplifying white supremacist mobilization, providing historical precedent for its depiction in as a for organized antagonism rooted in distorted racial narratives.

Gullah-Geechee Cultural Elements

The Gullah-Geechee people trace their origins to enslaved West Africans transported to the coastal regions of and , particularly the , where they developed rice, , and Sea Island plantations from the 1700s onward. This population retained distinctive cultural practices due to geographic isolation, which limited interaction with mainland populations and facilitated the preservation of West African linguistic, spiritual, and medicinal traditions amid post-emancipation pressures toward assimilation into broader Southern Black society. Central to Gullah-Geechee resilience were hoodoo and rootwork systems, syncretic practices blending West African herbalism, spiritual invocation, and protective rituals to address physical ailments, malevolent forces, and community threats. Root doctors employed plants like Life Everlasting (Gnaphalium polycephalum) for teas treating colds and other illnesses, while incorporating spiritual elements such as amulets and herbal bundles for warding off harm, knowledge transmitted orally across generations rather than through written records. Ancestral veneration played a key role, with beliefs in guiding spirits invoked for justice, healing, and empowerment, reflecting African-derived ancestor devotion adapted to the American context. In Ring Shout, these ethnographic realities inform motifs of cultural endurance, where protagonists draw on herbal lore for compounded remedies and protections, ancestral communions for strategic insight, and symbolic implements echoing documented hoodoo uses of silver—such as dimes embedded in charms for deflection of —against supernatural adversaries. This integration underscores Gullah-Geechee in historical contexts of and marginalization, portraying not as mere but as pragmatic tools for survival forged in isolation from assimilative influences like urban migration and formalized post-1865. Such elements highlight a causal from West African rice-coast ethnic groups, whose tidal rice cultivation expertise shaped their enslavement to these locales, enabling semi-autonomous communities that resisted full cultural erasure.

Characters

Protagonists

Maryse Boudreaux is the central figure among the protagonists, a resilient Black woman from outside , whose family was lynched in a traumatic attack when she was eighteen years old, leaving her with physical scars and a deep-seated motivation to eradicate manifestations of racial hatred. This personal vendetta fuels her role as a hunter equipped with exceptional sword-fighting prowess and a magical blade, enabling her to confront otherworldly threats directly. Her background as a Prohibition-era bootlegger underscores her adaptability and resourcefulness in evading authorities while pursuing her mission. Complementing Maryse are Sadie Watkins and Cordelia "Chef" Lawrence, two bootleggers whose illicit whiskey-running enterprise supplies the group with vehicular mobility across Georgia's backroads and substantial firepower through Sadie's marksmanship and Chef's expertise in explosives. , known for her foul-mouthed demeanor and sharpshooting skills honed in survival contexts, represents unyielding defiance, while , a veteran of from , brings tactical demolition knowledge that amplifies their combat effectiveness. Together, they exemplify working-class solidarity, leveraging their everyday hustles to sustain a grounded in mutual and practical ingenuity. Nana Jean functions as the group's spiritual anchor, an elder Gullah woman versed in conjuration and rootwork traditions derived from West African and heritage, providing mentorship on harnessing ritualistic and defenses against evils. Her role embodies the transmission of generational wisdom, drawing on Gullah-Geechee cultural practices to guide the younger protagonists in integrating folk magic with their physical confrontations, ensuring their efforts align with deeper ancestral strategies for preservation and retribution.

Antagonists and Supporting Figures

The primary antagonists in Ring Shout are the Ku Kluxes, eldritch demons that manifest as shape-shifting entities capable of assuming humanoid forms resembling Klansmen. These beings feed on hatred, particularly the collective malice amplified by mass screenings of D.W. Griffith's 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, which serves as a ritualistic conduit for their influence and proliferation across the United States in the 1920s. In their true forms, Ku Kluxes appear as pale, pointy-headed horrors or bone-colored, hound-like beasts, distinct from ordinary humans yet coexisting with and manipulating Klan members to extend their reach. Human collaborators form a supporting antagonistic element, comprising ideological adherents within the who enable the Ku Kluxes through their willing participation in hate-fueled activities. These individuals, often ordinary white supremacists radicalized or persuaded by the demons' influence, provide vessels for the entities' propagation by sustaining environments of fear and violence against Black communities. Klan leaders, such as figures invoking titles like Grand Cyclops, further this dynamic by organizing rallies and screenings that inadvertently—or in some interpretations, knowingly—nourish the supernatural threat. Minor supporting figures include occult-informed intellectuals who offer exposition on the demons' origins, tracing their emergence to early 20th-century rituals tied to racial violence, though such characters primarily serve to contextualize the foes' historical underpinnings without direct confrontation.

Themes and Analysis

Hatred, Justice, and Moral Ambiguity

In Ring Shout, the protagonists embody retributive anger as a calibrated response to empirically documented atrocities, contrasting sharply with the antagonists' consumptive rooted in fabricated racial hierarchies. Maryse Boudreaux's , forged from witnessing her family's , propels targeted strikes against enforcers, framed not as vengeful excess but as instrumental to halt ongoing terror. This delineation underscores 's bilateral perils—eroding the hater's humanity—yet privileges the protagonists' rage as non-equivalent, grounded in defensive necessity rather than initiatory malice. The novella anchors this in causal chains of historical violence, where post-Reconstruction lynchings—exceeding 4,500 documented cases of racial terror against Black Americans from 1877 to 1950—served as tools of subjugation without legal recourse, per records. The 1915 release of directly catalyzed Klan resurgence, correlating with membership surges to millions and escalated attacks on Black communities, as evidenced by contemporaneous spikes in documented racial violence. Such empirical patterns refute sanitized notions of moral symmetry, portraying antagonists' bigotry as causally prior and unprovoked, while protagonists' counter-violence emerges as proportionate resistance to existential threats. Moral ambiguity arises in the narrative's rare concession to hatred's seductive pull on the oppressed, where unchecked rage risks mirroring the enemy's deformation, as Maryse grapples with wielding a empowered by "righteous " distinct from hate's lie. This avoids binary absolutism by highlighting individual agency: even amid systemic incentives, antagonists choose consumptive , whereas protagonists exercise restraint to preserve their . Critiques note potential oversimplification in framing violence's , questioning uniform against Klan members irrespective of personal , yet the text's lies in rejecting —defensive acts do not originate the cycle of unbidden terror.

Supernatural Explanations of Historical Evil

In P. Djèlí Clark's , historical manifestations of , such as the resurgence of the following the 1915 premiere of , are depicted as amplified by eldritch entities that feed on human hatred, transforming susceptible individuals into monstrous forms. These cosmic horrors, drawing from Lovecraftian archetypes of indifferent otherworldly forces, exploit pre-existing prejudices rather than originating them, positioning racism as a vulnerability that supernatural predators intensify through cultural artifacts like D.W. Griffith's film. This fictional framework contrasts with causal analyses of post-Civil War racism, which attribute the KKK's initial formation in 1865–1866 to white Southern resentments over Confederate defeat and policies that briefly empowered freed Black Americans, leading to vigilante violence amid economic upheaval from the collapse of the system. Empirical data underscores human : lynchings, exceeding 4,000 documented cases between 1882 and 1968, correlated with labor competition and political disenfranchisement under , not external determinism. The 1915 KKK revival, spurred by The Birth of a Nation's portrayal of the group as heroic saviors of , saw membership balloon from negligible numbers to approximately 4 million by 1925, driven by nativist fears, Prohibition-era moral panics, and urban migration anxieties rather than otherworldly intervention. From a first-principles , attributing historical primarily to amplification risks underemphasizing ideological and material drivers, such as the film's —screened to over 3 million viewers initially—which romanticized Klan and reinforced sectional grievances lingering from the 1865 war's end. While the novella's lens serves as for hatred's corrosive spread, critics contend it may inadvertently externalize culpability, portraying atrocities as partially cosmic inevitability rather than choices rooted in and cultural transmission. Such framing echoes concerns in analyses of , where determinism can obscure the banal, voluntary embrace of supremacist ideologies amid post-emancipation power shifts.

Racial Dynamics and Violence

The novel depicts Ku Klux Klan violence as rooted in historical patterns of terror, including lynchings and intimidation campaigns that intensified after the 1915 premiere of The Birth of a Nation, which spurred the group's second iteration and contributed to a membership surge from negligible numbers to approximately 4 million by 1925, alongside documented atrocities such as the estimated 3,446 lynchings of Black Americans between 1882 and 1968, with peaks in the early . These acts are rendered both mundanely—as routine night rides enforcing and voter suppression—and horrifically through transformations, where Klansmen's consumption of hatred manifests as demonic "Ku Kluxes," grotesque entities that amplify real-world racial predation into . This dual portrayal confronts the era's documented violence, including the of 1919, when over 25 race riots resulted in hundreds of Black deaths amid Klan-influenced mob actions. Protagonist Maryse Boudreaux and her allies emphasize communal defense through the —a Gullah-derived invoking spiritual resistance—over individual vengeance, forming a clandestine network to hunt and disrupt Klan operations, thereby achieving targeted subversion of white supremacist media narratives that normalized such violence. Companion characters like the Professor (countering via underground publications) and (providing logistical support) underscore strategies that dismantle the film's ideological hold, portraying intergroup conflict as a necessary historical confrontation against institutionalized evil rather than symmetric aggression. Critics have noted risks in these depictions, including graphic through gore and retaliatory killings that may inadvertently reinforce of inherent Black militancy or perpetuate cycle-of-violence tropes, particularly by prioritizing explanations over material root causes like post-Reconstruction economic disparities, where and land dispossession fueled racial animosities in the South. Such elements, while grounded in the era's empirical record of asymmetrical , invite scrutiny for potentially amplifying mutual brutality without dissecting structural incentives, as evidenced in broader analyses of Jim Crow-era conflicts where correlated with heightened intergroup tensions.

Reception and Critical Analysis

Positive Reviews and Praises

Critics lauded Ring Shout for its seamless integration of body horror, fast-paced action, and allegorical critique of racism, often highlighting how the novella transforms historical atrocities into a supernatural framework without diluting their gravity. NPR selected it as one of the best books of 2020, praising its "wild ride into America's nightmarish history" that evokes comparisons to Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Buffy the Vampire Slayer for blending visceral demon-slaying with pointed social commentary. In Locus Magazine, Gary K. Wolfe commended the work as establishing a benchmark for "boisterous folk horror," noting its energetic fusion of folkloric elements with alternate-history terror that propels the narrative through vivid depictions of Southern Gothic dread and ritualistic violence. The novella's concise structure was frequently praised for maintaining relentless momentum across its short length, allowing for taut plotting that balances explosive confrontations with introspective moments on vengeance and resistance. Reviewers appreciated how Clark's prose evokes the humid, oppressive atmosphere of 1920s Georgia, immersing readers in a world where overlooked histories—like the cultural resurgence spurred by The Birth of a Nation—gain educational depth through fantastical lenses, educating on Gullah-Geechee traditions and Klan resurgence without preachiness. On Goodreads, it holds an average rating of 3.96 out of 5 from over 50,000 users, with many citing the protagonists' unapologetic fury as a refreshing nuance to revenge narratives, portraying their rage as a justified counter to systemic evil rather than mere catharsis. Specific commendations highlighted the story's refusal to sanitize Black anger, instead framing it as a moral force that humanizes fighters against demonic hatred, adding layers to tropes of heroic retribution.

Criticisms and Debates

Some readers and reviewers have identified pacing inconsistencies in Ring Shout, noting that the central historical exposition disrupts narrative flow in the mid-sections, creating a temporary slowdown amid otherwise brisk action sequences. This structure, while ultimately resolving into a satisfying climax, can leave audiences impatient for progression in quieter, info-heavy moments. The novella's compact 185-page length, published on October 13, , has drawn commentary for constraining deeper development of its alternate-history world-building, such as the broader implications of the incursions beyond the core plot. Critics argue this brevity prioritizes thematic punch over expansive lore, occasionally straining the balance between action, dialogue, and message conveyance, which may render certain ideological points feel unevenly integrated. Debates among readers include whether the portrayal of as a literal infection—manifesting through Ku Kluxes and influences—constitutes an intentional oversimplification that externalizes human moral failings, potentially diminishing emphasis on individual and accountability in historical atrocities. While some interpret this as a deliberate metaphorical choice to heighten horror's allegorical impact, others contend it risks abstracting the causal realities of interpersonal and societal into otherworldly forces, echoing broader discussions in fantasy circles on metaphor's limits in addressing real-world evil. Such views, though underrepresented in mainstream literary discourse, highlight tensions between narrative innovation and unflinching causal analysis of racial violence.

Cultural and Literary Impact

Ring Shout has contributed to the expansion of Black speculative fiction by integrating African American folklore, such as the ring shout ritual, with cosmic horror to critique historical racism, earning inclusion in guides to African diaspora speculative works published after 2020. The novella's supernatural reframing of events like the 1915 release of The Birth of a Nation—depicted as a ritualistic "spell" that summons demonic entities and amplifies white supremacist fervor—has informed scholarly examinations of horror's capacity for social commentary, appearing in analyses of the Black horror renaissance alongside works by authors like Tananarive Due. This approach parallels documented historical effects, where the film contributed to a surge in Ku Klux Klan membership from approximately 5,000 in 1915 to millions by the mid-1920s, prompting post-publication discourse on media's role in ideological propagation without relying on supernatural causation. In academic contexts, has been cited in studies of for its embrace of genre conventions to explore racial violence, influencing syllabi in horror literature courses where it serves as a lens for dissecting monstrosity tied to real-world ideologies. Its integration into university discussions, including those linking fictional hate-spawned demons to contemporary events like the , 2021, U.S. Capitol attack, underscores its utility in blending fantasy with American history curricula to examine persistent cultural undercurrents of division. Beyond academia, the work has appeared in post-2020 anthologies and reader lists elevating Black-authored speculative narratives, fostering trends toward horror-infused Afrofuturist storytelling that reclaims mythological elements for confronting systemic legacies.

Adaptations

Audiobook and Other Formats

The audiobook adaptation of Ring Shout was released on October 13, 2020, by Recorded Books, Inc., simultaneous with the print edition, and narrated by Channie Waites. The unabridged recording runs approximately 5 hours and 30 minutes at normal speed. Waites' narration has received commendation for effectively conveying the novella's Southern dialects, emotional intensity, and distinct character voices, enhancing the auditory experience of the supernatural and historical elements. Reviewers have highlighted her performance as transformative and engaging, contributing to the audiobook's average rating of 4.3 out of 5 from over 850 listener assessments on platforms like Audible. This format has facilitated broader accessibility, allowing audiences to engage with the work's themes of resistance and folklore through audio platforms such as Audible and OverDrive library services. As of October 2025, no confirmed adaptations into other media formats, such as , , or graphic novels, have been produced or announced.

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