P. Djèlí Clark does not miss. Every time I pick up one of his stories I'm bowled over by just how stunning his writing is. Ring Shout was a visceral story rich with history and culture. The novella follows a group of monster hunters hunting down members of the KKK who unbeknownst to wider society are actually demons fueled by the bigotry of the hate group.

Clark's work is consistently infused with vibrant black culture. In Ring Shout he celebrates the beauty of the ring shout tradition, root magic, the Carolina Gulla-Geechee dialect and more. While this story is set in a time of fear and hardship for black people, the rise of the KKK in 1946, it highlights the beauty of black culture. This book especially highlights the beauty that emerged in black communities in spite of suffering and to protect people from it.

Ring Shout was such a powerful story thematically. It celebrates resilience and healing from trauma. Clark fully realized this theme in our protagonist Maryse. Maryse wields a sword given to her by haints that holds the songs of suffering of enslaved people over the centuries. Seeing her learn to channel this power and her own history of trauma to defeat hate and protect her community was deeply moving.

She and her fellow hunters Sadie Watkins, a sharpshooter with the mouth of a sailor, and Cordelia "Chef" Lawrence, a veteran and resident explosives expert, were vibrant on the page. I felt the depth of their friendship from the jump and seeing them mow down Ku Kluxes was fun as hell. The wider black community including right shout leader Uncle Will, root practitioner Nana Jean and Jewish immigrant and ally Emma Kraus all made up the wonderful community of the story. Each character big or small felt fully realized with a depth and history hinted at that could exist just off the page.

Clark's writing, as always, was beautiful to take in. The story's narrator, Maryse, and the whole cast spoke in AAVE or Gulla and the dialect was rhythmic and melodious in the best way possible. Clark's prose is clean and refreshing in a way that I could never do justice. Each sentence is smooth like butter and just beautiful to read.

There's nothing more to say other than I loved this novella like I've loved almost everything else I've read by P. Djèlí Clark. He's a masterful, severely underread writer. I put off reading this book because I couldn't bear the thought of having no more of his writing left to savour. Clark is a brilliant author and I would behoove anyone even slightly interested in his work to read it as soon as humanly possible.