Wattpad brings you a guest post from Qwantu Amaru, author of horror-thriller One Blood:
For the record, I never set out to write a book about family curses or any other type of curse for that matter. Still, as the characters of One Blood revealed themselves to me (writers don’t actually create characters, they hide in the shadows and you have to go into dark places and shine bright lights to unveil them), I learned just how deep went the rabbit hole. Suddenly, I was researching Louisiana in the early 1800’s and cross-referencing this with the emergence of the Haitian influence on the state. Did you know, by the way, that between the 1790s and 1809, large numbers of Haitians of African descent migrated to Louisiana?
I just happened to have grown up in a city, Lake Charles, Louisiana, which received its first influx of African slaves in the early 1800s via a French pirate named Jean Lafitte who is generally revered by Louisianans. It was actually during the annual Contraband Day’s festival (a celebration of Lafitte) that I met David Duke, the former KKK grand-wizard and then candidate for governor. When my brain made these connections, the Lafitte curse was born and One Blood became the story you can read right here on Wattpad.
Curses are tricky and really have to be true to their origin stories to be fully effective. Still, they are wonderfully fun to write. With that, I give you my top 5 family curses in fiction (spoiler alert: if you haven’t read these yet, hopefully I won’t ruin the books for you!)!
5. The fukú americanus curse from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – In the novel, a fukú is a curse that came to Antilles, DR when the Europeans arrived on the islands. The narrator, Yunior, asserts that fukú is “real as s$#!” and that the Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina had a direct relationship with fukú; even using it to explain both Trujillo’s and John F. Kennedy’s demises and the subsequent dark cloud that has hung over the latter’s family. The book is about Oscar de León, and how his family is cursed. Fukú is a curse of your people, of love, and of New Jersey. Oscar is describes as a fat ghetto nerd and an outcast everywhere he goes – the one Dominican teenager in all New Jersey who can’t find someone willing to take his virginity. He spends the majority of the novel looking for a woman who will love him back. I was drawn in by the Caribbean origin of the curse, and its manifestation in the contemporary life of a Dominican immigrant, as well as how this unique story was infused with a supernatural undercurrent that propels everything forward.
4. The Avada Kedavra (Killing) Curse – Harry Potter –While there is not a true-to-life family curse in the Potter series, one can make an argument that Voldemort’s many attempts to block the prophesy of the half-blood prince from manifesting by using the Killing Curse, which theretofore had succeeded all but twice, put the burden of prophesy and curse on young Potter. Voldemort finally succeeds in cursing Harry in the forest clearing only to be defeated by Harry’s ultimate sacrifice. Did you know that the Killing Curse was invented during the early middle ages, by Dark witches or wizards – created primarily as a means of quickly and efficiently slaying one’s opponent in a duel? I love epic tales of good versus evil and it doesn’t get much more epic than Harry Potter!
3. The Toussaint Family Curse – The Good House – In Sacajawea, Washington, during the 1920’s, Marie Toussaint and her young daughter, Desiree, were the only black residents in the all-white Washington state town. With her common law Native American husband John, the Toussaints lived in one of the grandest house in Sacajawea, known to the town folks as, The Good House. Marie was a nurse and the high priestess of an African religion that was taught to her by her grandmother. In 1929, Marie exorcised a demon from the body of a young white girl. The demon, seeking revenge, placed a curse on Marie’s family bloodline. The sins of the grandmother will be visited upon the granddaughter. Angela Toussaint leaves the homestead of her late grandmother after her only son, Corey’s suicide. It is there that she Angela must return to face the evil force her grandmother unleashed. When I first read The Good House, it was the truest depiction of Vodun that I had read at that time and inspired me to dig much deeper for One Blood. If it weren’t for Tananarive Due, my novel may have never seen the light of day!
2. The Curse of the Mayfair Witches – The Witching Hour – The first book in the Mayfair Witches series, The Witching Hour introduces the fictional Mayfair family of New Orleans. This is a secretive and deeply connected family, where a death of one strengthens the others with his/her knowledge. One Mayfair witch per generation is also designated to receive the powers of “the man,” known as Lasher. Lasher gives the witches gifts, excites them, and protects them. He may be all these things, but he is also a curse and a plague on the family. Lasher has reigned over the family for centuries until the heir to the cursed Mayfair fortune and estranged daughter of the catatonic Dierdre Mayfair, Rowan, returns home, learns of her family’s sordid history and resolves to stop Lasher with the help of the newly psychic Michael Curry. Easily my favorite of Anne Rice’s works, The Witching Hour inspired the epic nature of my own novel.
1. The Monster’s Curse – Frankenstein –Mary Shelley’s masterpiece is about so many things: man’s reach exceeding his grasp, the destructive effects of industrialization, the morality and ethics of science, the dangers of obsession, the redemptive power of love; but it is the curse at the heart of the story that first ignited my desire to write. Frankenstein is the cautionary tale of Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant Swiss scientist who discovers the secret of bringing inanimate things to life, eventually creating a human-like monster which proceeds to ruin his life – promising to kill everyone he loves until Frankenstein creates a mate for him. Shelley actually wrote the story one murky night in 1816 (at the age of 19!) when her husband, Lord Byron, challenged a group of writers to see who could write the best ghost story. Did you know that within a few years of Frankenstein’s publication, nearly all of those involved met untimely deaths? Cursed, maybe? The most amazing thing about this novel is how it has remained relevant after all this time. And as long as technology, scientific discovery, power, greed, and capitalism exist, it will remain so. But if you’re like me, Frankenstein is much simpler than all this. It’s the first time I fell in love with a monster!
I hope you enjoyed this list and I truly hope you enjoy my spin on the generational curse in One Blood!
Read One Blood on Wattpad!
One Blood is about a supernatural curse tormenting a group of people unaware of their hidden connections.
Prepare to lose sleep as you journey through this award-winning Horror/Thriller novel with an ending you won’t see coming!