In this Under the Covers episode, we meet Michele Tracy Berger, author of Reenu – You, a novella that explores the politics of beauty, corporate conspiracy and unlikely female heroes battling a horrific virus that appears to be targeted against their race.

What if a visit to the salon could kill you? What if a product billed as a “natural hair relaxer” harbored a deadly virus? Reenu-You is about that virus. One reviewer says that in telling this story, Michele uses “the language of horror, of alienation from one’s own body, not the language of joy,” and that “the novella never leaves horror and alienation entirely behind.”

Much of Michele’s work explores psychological horror, especially through issues of race and gender.