57 pages • 1-hour read
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussions of racism, mental illness, child abuse, child death, suicidal ideation, graphic violence, animal cruelty, and death.
The Parallels Between Supernatural Horror and Societal Violence
In Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, Zeng is afraid of two things: The supernatural phenomena that increasingly intrude into her daily life, and the unsolved murders of various East Asian women. As the novel progresses, the supernatural horrors intensify as the death toll mounts, creating parallels between supernatural horror and societal violence.
Baker first establishes the parallel between supernatural horror and societal violence when Cora’s sister, Delilah, is killed in a hate crime, leaving Cora psychologically scarred from having witnessed the murder. Delilah’s murderer calling her a “bat eater” as he pushes her to her death underlines the racist hatred behind the crime, creating a scene of horror rooted in real-world prejudice. Later, when she begins to be haunted by a “hungry ghost,” Cora assumes that it is Delilah returning, restless in death. However, Cora is not the only one—Yifei’s experience with the supernatural also echoes aspects of societal violence, as her younger sister, almost drowned to death as a baby for being a girl in China, went on to murder Yifei’s parents and almost killed Yifei, too, in a paranormal encounter. Thus, Baker uses the supernatural as an embodiment of the societal terrors and traumas her characters experience.
However, as Cora gradually learns more about the nature of “hungry ghosts” and draws closer to solving the crime, she begins to separate her fear of the supernatural from her fear of societal violence, which helps Baker draw out the central messaging of her book. When Cora learns the truth behind the murders of the East Asian women, her horror at the depth and intensity of this kind of societal violence only intensifies. By contrast, when she learns the identity of the ghost and the reason for its hunger, Cora’s fear disappears, replaced instead with empathy and anger on behalf of the many victims of racial violence. It is the trauma of the victims, having met such gruesome deaths, that leads them to take on the forms of “hungry ghosts”—both in the case of the women in New York City and, in retrospect, in the case of Yifei’s sister as well.
When this trauma is understood, the supernatural elements is no longer fearsome, while the terror of societal violence and trauma is further heightened. This, ultimately, is the message of Baker’s Bat Eater: In the face of the kind of violence human society is capable of inflicting upon each other, supernatural horror pales in comparison.
The Invisibility and Erasure of Marginalized Victims
Set during the early months of the pandemic in New York City, the novel focuses on the hatred and violence that the East Asian community experienced during this time. Baker uses this context to explore the larger issue of how marginalized victims are often treated as invisible, their experiences, suffering, and even their existence erased from mainstream society.
The rampage of murders that forms part of the book’s mystery introduces the problem of erasure. Baker steadily builds a case for these murders being racially motivated: The cleaning crew notices an unusual number of East Asian murder victims, almost all women; when bats begin to appear, it further emphasizes that the killer is targeting a specific community. The murders are a literal act of erasure, the women’s existences brought to an abrupt and gory end. However, how the murders are treated further underlines the invisibility faced by those who are marginalized: Despite the mounting number of murders, there is no conversation present in the public about them, while the police seem largely indifferent.
Cora and the crew face roadblocks when trying to bring media attention to these murders, with Officer Wang being erased for attempting to investigate them further. No follow-up questions appear, either: Officer Wang’s desk is cleared out immediately after his death and some of the evidence he collected is deliberately shredded, while Harvey’s body is only discovered two whole days after his murder. There is direct and conscious erasure of the victims’ experiences and fates, enabled by an ideology that devalues the lives of the marginalized and perpetuates their invisibility.
Baker also highlights invisibility and erasure beyond the pandemic context as well. The violence and trauma that both Yifei and her sister experienced as children reflects how their personhood was devalued, ignored, and discounted in a society that prioritizes boys and men. Yifei was not given a name at birth, leading her to live an anonymous existence until she adopted a name for herself. Yifei’s sister was almost erased, then kept invisible, for the entirety of her existence. Similarly, there are allusions to incidents like the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020 at the hands of policemen, which led to widespread protests across the country at the chronic failure of the justice system to hold those responsible to account. Baker’s presentation of these other instances of erasure highlights how different marginalized communities can experience invisibility in various contexts.
Thus, even while discussing the specific context of prejudice against East Asian Americans in the pandemic, the novel raises the issue of how marginalized victims face invisibility and erasure more generally. The novel thus invites readers to consider the unequal ways in which people, and victims of crimes, are treated based on their ethnicity, gender, and immigration status.
Folk Ritual as Pathway to Healing from Grief
For the supernatural element in Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, Baker relies heavily on Chinese folklore. The “hungry ghost” is a being from this culture, and interludes featuring Auntie Zeng’s advice on ghost month run through the narrative of the book. Baker uses the traditions and rituals around “hungry ghosts” to explore how folk ritual can serve as a pathway to healing from grief, especially through Cora’s experiences.
Cora is initially a character steeped in grief. The trauma of witnessing Delilah’s death is still very real for her, manifesting in self-chosen isolation and mental health issues including obsessive cleanliness. She does have some faith-based rituals she partakes in, such as church with Aunt Lois on Sundays, and monthly meals with Auntie Zeng that also involve praying to the Chinese gods. However, neither of these rituals bring her any relief at the beginning of the novel; instead, she participates in them as obligatory routine, with no actual belief in the practices.
What pushes Cora out of the inertia of her grief is her encounter with the supernatural. The “hungry ghost,” as a being from Chinese folklore, leads Cora to seek out people from her community who will potentially understand such a phenomenon, like Harvey and Yifei. Cora’s belief that the ghost is Delilah also leads her to talk about and begin to process her sister’s death, as she openly talks about Delilah’s murder for the first time ever to Yifei and Harvey. Additionally, since a Chinese ghost requires culturally appropriate interventions, Cora is forced to engage in Chinese folk rituals, such as a feast for the hungry dead, and Auntie Zeng’s burning of joss paper and insistence that Cora wear her jade bracelet. The intensity of the supernatural experience shakes Cora out of her numbing grief and pushes her towards not only movement, but also a more conscious and deliberate engagement with folk ritual.
While the rituals are significant in their own way, they also prompt Cora’s personal healing. The rituals bring her closer to the people around her, strengthening her sense of community with friends and family who care—Yifei, Harvey, and Auntie Zeng. In opening up to them about Delilah’s death and embracing their suggestions of rituals and practices, Cora inadvertently engages in acts that involve togetherness like preparing food and praying. Folk rituals thus help form a pathway to healing from grief through the social support and sense of community they foster.
Cora’s progress is evident at the end of the book: She has abandoned her isolated existence and moved in with Auntie Zeng, regularly prays with her, and is leading a functional, more optimistic existence. Cora’s character arc thus explores how folk rituals can offer a way out of grief and towards healing through the community and solidarity they enable.
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