Tananarive Due
At a glance
All the Sinners Bleed meets Erasure in this literary thriller from the award-winning author of The Reformatory following the grandson of a famous Black actress who returns to his grandmother’s cabin retreat in the California mountains only to encounter the legacy of her rage born in Old Hollywood.
When Johnny—a filmmaker and grandson of the famous Black actress Mazelle Washington—brings his family to Mazywood, the secluded California mountain lodge left behind by his grandmother, he expects a quiet retreat. Instead, he uncovers a legacy of rage, secrets, and terror that has haunted his family for generations.
Set primarily in the present day, with haunting flashbacks to Hollywood’s Golden Age, Mazywood explores three generations while following Johnny as he pieces together the true story of his grandmother. As a young Black actress whose career spanned from the 1920s to the 1940s, Mazelle brushed shoulders with giants like Lena Horne, Clark Gable, and Hattie McDaniel. But beneath her public appearance, she carried a secret she had kept and nurtured since she was a child, when a dark wish came true and changed the course of her life forever.
Now, fifty years after Mazelle’s death, Johnny finds himself confronting the truth she buried—and the consequences she left behind. For a monster lurks outside Mazywood, hidden for generations, and Johnny brought his family to its hunting grounds.
“A creature feature with brains and bite that will chill readers to the bone…. A standing ovation.”
– Booklist, starred review 🌟
“This enthralling hybrid of showbiz history, supernatural mystery, and nail-biting adventure in the wild spins a chilling, enlightening, and ultimately heartrending saga...This feels perilously close to a career triumph for its author.”
– Kirkus Reviews, starred review 🌟
“A genuinely haunting novel which shows that the terrors of the past are never far away.”
– Library Journal, starred review 🌟
Mazelle Washington worshipped the woods.
She didn’t mind bug bites, or mysterious rustling in the brush, or twigs scratching her face and snagging her hair because the woods were so magical compared to the sameness of the cities her family had toured during her seven years of life. Rustling revealed deer, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, possums, and animals she didn’t yet know; quick flashes of brown, gray, and black. An entire world was hidden beneath the surface of the everyday one. Mother had read her stories about enchanted forests in fairy tales, but in Gracetown the enchantments felt real.
Today, she had set out to find the Wishing Pool, wearing overalls in case she needed to crawl or climb. It wasn’t noon yet, so she had avoided the worst of the sun’s afternoon glare. She waded into the high brush nestling the stand of pines, following the rough map she had drawn from the descriptions she’d heard, past the large wooden sign boasting fresh pecans! and the famed oak trees bending toward each other like twins. She’d crossed the road from her house to these woods, and knew she was headed the right way when she heard the gentle creek. She’d followed that creek many times to the more shaded parts of the forest, but never as far as the Wishing Pool.
She wanted to believe that if she found the Wishing Pool and threw in a penny—as long as she didn’t touch the water in any way, even with her pinkie toe—her wish would come true the same day, or at least before morning. All the younger children at Jonathan C. Gibbs Primary School swore to the story, although the older children warned it was lies. Coincidences. Bad luck, some of the older children said. Others claimed that the Wishing Pool dried up and was impossible to find, except in the summer.
But it was summer now.
Priscilla Stephens had sat with her on the bench at lunchtime on the last day of school and told her how to make her wish, which she’d heard from her sister. Wishes always try to trick you, she warned her. So you have to say what you want without leaving nothin’ out. Down to every little itty-bitty thing.
Back-to-school season hits hard for us book people, and Mazywood is paradise for a teacher’s pet: you’ll learn a ton while reading, without any of it feeling like homework. This book is equal parts high-octane horror flick and whipsmart academic essay—a tricky needle to thread.
But if anyone can do it, it’s long-time Aardvarkian favorite Tananarive Due—winner of our Members’ Choice Award back in 2024! With Mazywood, she spins her signature horror-historical hybrid, literalizing the anti-Blackness of golden-age Hollywood as the horror it was. Weaving in real-life historical figures (like Hattie McDaniel, the first-ever Black person to win an Oscar), Mazywood imagines the life of Mazelle Washington, a Black actress navigating a career in a deeply racist industry, as well as the legacy—and horrors—she leaves behind for future generations to contend with.
Mazelle and her pet showdog Scout give a whole new meaning to the phrase “everyone loves an underdog.”
Child abuse, sexual assault, racism.
