Trigger warning for graphic violence.
Kylie Lee Baker launches her stunning portrait of grief, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, by showing us the worst thing that ever happens to her protagonist. In 2020, as COVID-19 sweeps around the globe, Cora and her sister, Delilah, are waiting for a train when a man throws Delilah in front of a train. Delilah is killed instantly. The man is never caught and Cora is haunted not only by the death but by the words the man spat at her and her sister: “bat eater.”
Months after her sister’s death, Cora is doing her utmost to carry on without her. She found a job cleaning crime scenes to pay the bills. She dutifully accompanies her Aunt Louise to church on Sundays and visits her Auntie Zeng to keep in touch with the father who left his daughters and returned to China years earlier. When she’s not working or visiting, however, Cora struggles to figure out who she is without her ambitious sister. Without Delilah to pull her through life, what is Cora supposed to do? Curiously, Covid-19 is the least of her worries. With Covid-19 on the march, Cora’s extreme germophobia is almost reasonable. The anti-Asian racism that comes with Covid-19 is much worse than the actual virus.
Most of Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng takes place during the Hungry Ghost Festival, the month when family ghosts return to visit the living. Ghosts who are not honored can return as hungry ghosts, murderous creatures with a bottomless hunger that is nearly impossible to satisfy. Cora was born and raised in the United States. Although one of her aunts taught her about Chinese traditions, Cora never bothered to take them seriously, at least until ghostly figures start to haunt her. The ghosts begin to appear after Cora and her two crewmates find a bat at the scene of the murder of an Asian American woman. The bat (and the ghosts) keep appearing as Cora and her crew are called in to clean up after more murders. Strangest of all, it seems like the ghosts want Cora to find out who killed them as much as they want to devour everything.
There is a lot going on in this novel. Baker packs so much into 350 pages that I am astonished by its emotional depth. There’s the murder mystery and the ghosts and there’s Cora’s grief for her sister, her shame over her germophobia, her fraught relationship with her family, and the hope that Cora might be able to make some real friends. Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng is an incredible read.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.