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Post by andydecker on Aug 21, 2023 9:03:09 GMT
Annette Hard – Stranger at the Crossroads (Warner Books, 1976, 269 pages)  Cover found on the net. Thanks to the original scanner.
The 70s. Frankie and Paul are a typically married couple. They must move from Boston to New Jersey because Paul who works for the military industry gets transferred. Frankie is frustrated because their marriage is childless, also she thinks herself as unattractive, getting old fast. Paul, an attractive 40 year old, says he don't mind, but Frankie doesn't believe him. And she hates New Jersey and the house in the suburbs Paul buys, still she follows him dutifully. The house was formerly occupied by ravishing Aurora who had all the husbands of the community lusting after her and all the wives hating her with a vengeance. She died in childbirth, but there was no funeral. And she or her husband was dabbling in voodoo. Paul and Frankie find a stinking doll in the cellar they destory and bury there. Unhappy in her new home Frankie begins to transform. She looks younger and loses weight. Paul is not amused. Then comes the day when Frankie thinks she is possessed by Aurora … Annette Hard may be a pseudonym, it seems this was the only novel under that name. Basically this is a possession novel with a surprisingly downbeat and graphic end. At 270 pages there are no really slow parts, but at times it overbids the psychological thriller card. This element consists mostly of the protagonist thinking herself either possessed or insane and suddenly having sex with strangers, and it makes the supernatural angle too vague. Auroras background never gets really explained which makes the gory ending {Spoiler}Frankie gets pregnant and delivers a child half human and half snake which the attending doctor kills on the spot to her relief; later she dies in her sleep and transform into a oozing corpse before the eyes of her husband, while in the epilogue she or the real Aurora gets resurrected in a voodoo ceremony - it remains ambiguous which white man orders the ceremony, Paul or Aurora's husband even more of a head-scratcher and very out of sync with the first parts of the novel. (I report this with a caveat; I only read a translation and it is always possible that parts got edited out.) This is one of those novels which were written for a then burgeoning market only to sink into obscurity. There are some well-written scenes and ideas to avoid the usual cliches, and the ending is mad, but declaring this a lost masterpiece would be wrong. |
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