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NOTE: as with all the others I’ve done in the Other Books series, I have not read Star Shapes; this is just pure guesswork and a bit of fun that will hopefully persuade you [and myself] to check out her book.

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This one is quite random – didn’t know the author, didn’t know the publisher – it just popped up somewhere with the word ‘Star’ in it and a space backdrop so…

Is it actually about space?

Looking at the plot synopsis, maybe not:

Kidnapped from downtown Birmingham, Alabama, and taken to the country, our protagonist is pretty irked. Rather than ask for a ransom, her captors make her feed animals and read dusty books.
She is unnerved by the growing realization that something weirder is afoot, and it all ties back to a book of strange constellations known simply as Star Shapes.
People look to the stars to read the future, but sometimes the stars conceal stories from the past.

I’m not from the Deep South, or even American, but I have seen Lemora: A Child’s Supernatural Tale [filmed in California], and that’s what I’m gonna lean on for the following spec. The eerie-dark aesthetic of prohibition era South-Somewhere, the isolation of everything, even interior sets like the bus station, the vampire matriarch who lures young Lila to her lonely vampire town.

And the Star Shapes?

Okay, so it says the kidnappers are uninterested in a ransom, and instead make the MC perform menial tasks and read dusty books…dusty implies they haven’t been read in a while…that or they’re right next to a window with a busy road outside?

I’m guessing an ancient prophecy, possibly related to some esoteric pagan sect that hasn’t been mentioned in a film before.

Or maybe it’s a fictional sect, made up by the author cos everything real has already been mined to exhaustion/extinction/abstraction/death?

Theme?

Predestination? The need to be connected to something larger/out there?

It’s in the Deep South, so it could be saying something about religion. To be honest, I don’t know how much of that hyper-evangelical stuff is a stereotype and how much is actually living next door to you [if that’s where you’re from]. Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away come to mind. But those novels are over sixty years old, written by a white lady who, although a genius at voice, had no problem using the n word.

Is that what the Deep South still is [if it ever truly was]?

I don’t know, there’s also the distinction between fictionalised settings and the thousands of pockets of real communities that exist within even the smallest state/country. Example: some people think the film Notting Hill is an accurate reflection of London instead of a niche Oxford grad’s fantasy-scape.

So, is Birmingham, Alabama used as a symbolic place-setter for its racist history in the minds of layman/alien like me, or is it where the author is from? Or perhaps just a random pick?

Nothing is random in fiction.

Unless you’re writing a specific theme where everything is random and you just poked a fingernail at the world map to get your location?

Spec 1: the kidnappers are acting via their interpretation of ancient indigenous star maps, but because they’re not indigenous, they get the translation wrong yet that’s immaterial cos they’re convinced of it, even when random, unpredicted events start occurring.

I like the indigenous angle. What was the tribe in the Alabama area before?

According to the map above, that’s the US pre-genocide/cowardly land theft. And I’m realising that I don’t actually know where Alabama is. Somewhere in the South, but which part?

Okay, I’ve checked and it’s just Northwest of Florida. Didn’t realise it had a coastline, albeit a tiny little one. Maybe it was larger before, cos the western part of Florida looks like a weirdly straight elbow pushing its way in. But it doesn’t matter really, they’re both thieves historically, and the tribe that lived on that land before was…I think…the Creek? Or maybe the Chickasaw? [Please insert correct answer]

So I’m gonna predict that the star shapes are related to them and the main plot is either an attempt to get revenge for historical wrongs or carve out a future beyond some fast-approaching cataclysm.

Okay, here’s the main spec. As usual it’s most likely to be wrong to an embarrassing degree, but sometimes I tap into something cosmic and come up with stuff that makes the author think their brain’s been hacked.

Spec: it starts pre-kidnapping, with the protagonist drifting aimlessly through her daily routine, not being named explicitly by anyone. She works in the service industry, deals with irritating people, and reads a book on Italian Futurism when there are no customers around. Or perhaps she works in a library/bookshop, and reads about old pagan sects from other countries. Is that too rigidly linked to the star shapes stuff coming later? Maybe. The Italian futurism is way too specific to be right, but would make a nice contrast as it’s related to the future aspect, but detaches itself from any interest in the past. Hmm, I think I’ll go with Italian Futurism cos it’s more eerie if I happen to be right.

Next, the kidnapping takes place, the MC drugged after stopping to help someone in distress [arm sling? Bleeding face?] then waking up in a room with indigenous iconography plastered all over the wall. Outside, is a farm/commune, with most of the kidnappers acting in a deferential way towards the MC, and two in particular standing out. One is an amiable guy who clearly has a latent sexual interest in her, and the other is a stern woman who the MC will be attracted to more and more as the plot goes on.

[I just checked and it’s just over 100 pages, so the plot can’t meander too much]

In the middle section, she is told to read and interpret books about the movement of the stars and what that means, as well as feeding the animals to keep her grounded. The amiable guy finally musters up enough sleaze to make a move on her, which she rejects immediately, shouting tribal curses at his face. This surprises her as much as it does him – why can she speak another language, is she dipping into some kind of ancestral memory well, how is that possible when she’s whiter than Giovanni Ribisi? – and after that he becomes convinced that she is not the prophet they are looking for. However, the stern woman defends the MC, bathes her semi-erotically, kisses her neck, then leads her into a ritualistic ceremony that the MC thinks is the next phase of the seduction attempt. After having her body painted with symbols that have a distinct Satanist vibe, she is given a knife and told to kill three of the pigs she has been feeding. Despite eating pork her whole life, she is unable to even raise the blade. The amiable guy says ha, I told you she was a fraud, but the stern cult leader woman takes the MC by the hand, rubs it over her body, picks up the knife and helps her to stab the pigs. Lost of squealing and shrieking, more justified from the pigs side obviously, but the MC endures and after this, the ground starts to shake. A creature rises up [that hopefully won’t look like a giant squid cos that’s been done] and starts to move toward the farm exit. Then stops, looks back at the cult members clapping, feels enervated psychically, slithers back and devours them all. The amiable guy gets a particularly unpleasant death, ripped in half, then picked up and ripped in half again, while the cult leader is reduced to broken indigenous speak that irritates the creature so much that it smacks her head off. In shock, the MC stands there as someone in shock would, waiting to be ripped in half too, but it doesn’t happen cos she is in fact one tenth indigenous, a distant relative of the original carers of the creature. Because of this, or perhaps a sudden feeling of acute loneliness, the creature spares her and starts licking her cheek.

In the epilogue, a group of indigenous people arrives at the farm, as the MC stands watching them from the entrance to the barn, which is now the freshly renovated home of the creature [all but the most stubborn of the blood stains has been cleaned up].

One woman in particular catches her eye, making her smile, which is killed instantly as a guy pops up behind her, wearing a Nietzsche GOD IS DIED BRO t-shirt.

End of spec.

Obviously, there’s some silly parts, and I really do go all in on the indigenous angle, but if a Lovecraftian, indigenous creature doesn’t turn up at the end then…I don’t know…the pigs are aliens?

Or maybe it’s simply about the conviction of cults.

I think I would prefer that to a creature cos the moment things become real-fantastical, the theme gets absorbed and it’s just a feeling of, oh, the lunatics were right all along. I mean, you can reduce it a little, e.g. it’s just a creature that helps to sustain the cult but isn’t large or destructive enough to attack a city or nation state. That can work too. But the idea behind the belief, the certainty that something bigger has to be out there, underpinning things, giving meaning, consuming people you don’t like etc. is definitely the better choice.

Or maybe there’s a third/fourth/fifth way I didn’t think of?

You can buy or pre-order Star Shapes maybe here…I’m not completely sure. Give it a try anyway and just click until you find the right page.