Tananarive Due's Mazywood Blends Showbiz History and Supernatural Mystery
Tananarive Due's new novel Mazywood follows a Hollywood screenwriter who inherits his grandmother's mountain lodge, uncovering a legacy of racial barriers, family secrets, and an unseen terror lurking in the snow.
Tananarive Due's latest novel, Mazywood, weaves together the history of Black Hollywood, a family's buried secrets, and a chilling supernatural presence in the mountains of Northern California. The book centers on Johnny Washington, a screenwriter and producer who is the grandson of Mazelle Washington, a legendary Black actress whose career spanned the 1920s to the 1940s.
Mazelle, like her gifted contemporaries Hattie McDaniel and others, was confined to comedic servant roles during the studio system's golden age, a period that coincided with the slow decline of Jim Crow America. Johnny, who continues to battle racially blinkered studio executives in what is presumed to be a more enlightened era, has inherited the frayed but cozy remnants of Bear Creek Lodge, a ski resort near Mount Shasta that Mazelle owned and operated in the 1950s as a getaway for Black celebrities such as Lena Horne and Sammy Davis Jr., who were shunned from similar establishments despite their fame.
Despite a fraught relationship with his grandmother during her years of embittered semiretirement, Johnny finds solace in the lodge, where he retreats with his wife Tasha, a university professor, and their teenage daughters, Sharise and Imani. Both girls have inherited varying degrees of their grandmother's energy and verve. Unbeknownst to them or their father, Tasha is secretly researching a book on Mazelle's tumultuous life.
As the family settles in for what already feels like a tense holiday amid the unrelenting Shasta snows, something big, strange, and scary lurks just beyond their immediate sight, leaving bizarre and alarmingly blood-soaked evidence of death and destruction. Through flashbacks masterfully woven throughout the novel, Due spins a chilling, enlightening, and ultimately heartrending saga of generational trauma, thwarted dreams, and familial devotion.
The novel is an enthralling hybrid of showbiz history, supernatural mystery, and nail-biting adventure in the wild. Due, a redoubtable storyteller, uses the backdrop of the lodge and its snowy environs to explore the lingering effects of racial exclusion and the personal costs of ambition. The flashbacks reveal Mazelle's struggles and triumphs, while the present-day narrative builds tension as the family confronts both external threats and internal fractures.
Mazywood is published by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Due is the author of several acclaimed works of speculative fiction, including The Between and the African Immortals series. Her writing often blends horror, science fiction, and African American history, earning her a reputation as a master of genre-defying storytelling. The novel is available in hardcover and e-book formats.
With its mix of historical detail and supernatural suspense, Mazywood offers readers a gripping exploration of how the past continues to haunt the present, and how family bonds can both wound and heal. The book is a must-read for fans of literary horror and anyone interested in the untold stories of Black Hollywood.
3
