The House of Erzulie, Kirsten Imani Kasai
The House of Erzulie, Kirsten Imani Kasai
1 Rating(s)
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The House of Erzulie

Author: Kirsten Imani Kasai

Narrator: Adenrele Ojo, Ron Butler

Unabridged: 12 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/26/2019


Synopsis

The House of Erzulie tells the eerily intertwined stories of an ill-fated young couple in the 1850s and the troubled historian who discovers their writings in the present day.

Emilie St. Ange, daughter of a Creole slaveowning family in Louisiana, rebels against her parents by embracing spiritualism and advocating the abolition of slavery. Isidore, her biracial, French-born husband, is horrified by the brutalities of plantation life and becomes unhinged by an obsessive affair with a notorious New Orleans vodou practitioner.

Emilie's and Isidore's letters and journals are interspersed with sections narrated by Lydia Mueller, an architectural historian whose fragile mental health further deteriorates as she reads.

Imbued with a sense of the uncanny and the surreal, The House of Erzulie also alludes to the very real horrors of slavery as it draws on the long tradition of the African-American Gothic novel.

About Kirsten Imani Kasai

Kirsten Imani Kasai, a feminist author with Southern roots, has published in a range of literary styles, including the speculative fiction novels Ice Song and Tattoo. She is the publisher and editor of Body Parts Magazine and has an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles.


Reviews

Goodreads review by ColumbusReads on March 04, 2018

A Gothic, gorgeous, gem of a book with dual storylines of 1850’s slavery, voodoo/mysticism and mental illness and present day sensuality and marital strife. Kirsten Imani Kasai’s writing is simply breathtaking at times as I found myself rereading passages for their sheer brilliance. The author beaut......more

Goodreads review by Lois on September 04, 2022

This was interesting and unique. I quite enjoyed this. This is primarily set during the 1850's in the NOLA. It's a story of Black slave owners and Voodoo.......more

Goodreads review by Mya Matteo on December 29, 2017

really well-written immersive/creepy read. Shout out to indie authors and to Shade Mountain Press for publishing intriguing work.......more

Goodreads review by Beverly on March 29, 2018

thoughts coming shortly......more

Goodreads review by Alicia (PrettyBrownEyeReader) on November 29, 2021

I began reading this book thinking it would be a voodoo laced tale. Instead, this novel is a gothic tale, an unfamiliar genre to me. The novel takes place in two time periods, antebellum Louisiana and modern day. In both time periods, a main character experiences mental illness. The author describes......more