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Post by andydecker on Mar 11, 2022 8:55:49 GMT
Jorge Saralegui - Last Rites (Charter, 1985, 279 pages)  Jorge Manuel Saralegui, about whom we sadly know nothing, has published at least three horror novels at American outfit Charter Books - the ISFDB omits Shadow Stalker from 1987 - and then vanished. Or maybe it was a pseudonym. This is a frustrating book. It is a vampire story, and there is so much potential in the concepts. We have the Tenderloin, the (in)famous sleazy quarter of San Francisco back then, and the novel begins with a Black Mass in historic San Francisco. Nick is a teacher fallen on hard times, he just had an ugly divorce. So he starts anew in San Francisco. As he is broke, he takes a room in the rundown Le Casa de Delores, a hotel in the Tenderloin, in the 1880s the property of scandalous Lourdes, mistress of the rich and mighty. Now it is run by wheelchaird bound old Dolores. One of Nicks new pupils is teenaged Amanda, daughter of rich couple Jessie and Randolph Westerhays. Amanda is developing into a problem child. There are vampire murders in the Tenderloin, an eccentric priest manages to convince Nick that they hide in the hotel. Nicks mysterious new lover Judith may be one of them. Even Amanda who has an unholy influence on Nick which gets him fired. This is serious horror with some topics which have become controversial in the meantime, especially Nick's fascination with underage and vampirized Amanda. The story even has a – for the time – unforseen twist. But I struggled with it. Maybe it was the translation - I only have the German edition for once - , which made this hard to read, maybe it is the style of writing. I thought a lot of scenes were clumsily and even confusingly told. There are great set pieces, interesting concepts, sex which varied between pretentious and surprisingly graphic at times, even some gore. But it doesn't add up which is a pity. It is one of those déjà vu novels, where you stumble upon pieces which later became so familiar in movies and other novels, but which kind of die here on the page. |
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