Ring Shout

Published in 2020 by P. Djéli Clark, Ring Shout, or Hunting Ku Kluxes in the End Times, is a speculative novella (short novel) set in a world in which members of the Ku Klux Klan are literal monsters. Clark is an academic historian whose work is primarily set in alternate universes. Ring Shout won the prestigious Nebula, Locus, and British Fantasy Awards. Skydance Television is currently developing the novella as a TV show.

This guide refers to the Tor Books Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss anti-Black racism and violence, enslavement, and hate crimes such as lynching.

Plot Summary

The action unfolds in an alternate universe in which Walter J. Simmons uses Birth of a Nation, a 1915 film that includes dangerous racism and glorification of the first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan, to recruit many members to a new, magical Klan. Set in 1922, the novella opens in Macon, Georgia, with Maryse Boudreaux, Sadie Watkins, and Cordelia “Chef” Lawrence trapping Ku Kluxes. Maryse kills one of the Ku Kluxes with a magical, singing sword that appears when she is in danger or angry.

After trapping several Ku Kluxes, the trio heads to the farm of Nana Jean, a Gullah woman with magical power that she channels through the Ring Shout (the Gullah are a Black ethnic group who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the US today, including Georgia, and are the descendants of West and Central Africans who were enslaved and brought to the lower Atlantic states to work on rice, cotton, and indigo plantations). The Ring Shout is a ritual in which, out of sight of their enslavers, enslaved people engage in movement, singing, and rhythmic stomping and clapping; the Ring Shout survived enslavement times. Molly Hogan, the scientist of the group, observes the Ku Klux carcasses and concludes that they are evolving into something else. Both Molly and Nana Jean warn that these changes foreshadow a disaster. Maryse suspects that Simmons plans to do a great conjuring up on Stone Mountain, Georgia, where he has scheduled a screening of Birth of a Nation.

That night, Maryse spends time with Michael “Frenchy” George, her lover. She has three visions later that night, including one in which she is a girl hiding in a hatch as the Ku Kluxes murder her family; a child version of Maryse warns her that she is vulnerable to Butcher Clyde if she lets her pain rule her. In the second vision, Maryse speaks to a frightening white figure called Butcher Clyde, who sings discordant songs as he chops what looks to be flesh. In the final vision, Maryse visits the aunties—three foxlike entities who gifted her the sword. They tell her that Butcher Clyde is a harbinger of dangerous times. Maryse seeks out Butcher Clyde the next day to take his measure. He insinuates that he does have a plan that will harm Maryse and the people on the farm unless she joins forces with him.

Maryse returns to the farm to warn the resistance that Butcher Clyde intends to attack the farm. To their surprise, the attack comes when the Ku Kluxes and Butcher Clyde burn down Frenchy’s juke joint and take hostages, including Frenchy. Sadie dies protecting Maryse. Butcher Clyde briefly takes Maryse hostage and tries to tempt Maryse to join his side. He claims that the aunties have been lying to Maryse about who she is. She escapes, but her sword breaks when her rage overwhelms her. Maryse tries to convince her friends to pursue Butcher Clyde to Stone Mountain, but they are initially skeptical.

When Maryse uses a dream to talk to the aunties, they warn her that their ability to help her is diminishing. They tell her to seek out the Night Doctors, mythical body snatchers who might use their hunger for hate to help her. Maryse manages to enter the realm of the Night Doctors. They force Maryse to confront the trauma she experienced during the murder of her family. The sword appears, whole again, but the Night Doctors eject Maryse from their realm when the pain embodied in the sword and Maryse overwhelms them. She still hopes that they will help her. Maryse takes this slim hope for allies to her friends at the farm and finally convinces them to take their small band of fighters to Stone Mountain.

During a great final battle, Butcher Clyde uses the hate of a mass of Klanspeople who are turning into Ku Kluxes to conjure the Grand Cyclops, a creature who lives on hate. Butcher Clyde makes Maryse one more offer. If she comes over to the Grand Cyclops’s side, he will give her the power to avenge all the suffering white people have inflicted on Black people over the ages. Recalling a tradition of love and justice that exists as part of Black American culture, she resists him and manages to chop him up. The Night Doctors and a host of ghosts who are victims of anti-Black violence and murder arrive as reinforcements and defeat the remaining Ku Kluxes, ending the battle. The novella ends with an Epilogue in which Maryse learns from the aunties that another powerful, dark magician is rising in Rhode Island. The battle against hate is not over, so Maryse decides to keep the sword.