I don't usually read horror fiction, but I recently finished two tales of terror that kept me turning pages into the wee hours of the night, despite my usual urge to flip off the light any time after my evening bath (I'll do well at a rest home some day).
Guillermo del Toro's "The Strain," the first volume of a planned vampire trilogy, is pretty much what you would expect from del Toro. If you saw "Pan's Labyrinth," written and directed by del Toro in 2006, you know that Guillermo knows how to create a monster; I was scrambling away from del Toro's grotesque "eyeball ghoul" in my dreams for weeks after seeing that movie. Del Toro's vampires aren't of the romantic Abercrombie and Fitch ilk that dominates today's popular culture. His creatures have blood red eyes with huge black pupils, atrophying body parts (yes, there in particular), and extendable tongue-like stingers that can fly out and tap your carotid artery at six paces. Add the fact that these fellows smell like a mixture of sour dirt and moldy cheese, and romance is not an option.
Del Toro takes some classic tropes from the vampire canon (earth-filled coffins, the utility of silver, sunlight, and mirrors, etc.) and adds a scientific angle that infuses time-ticking exigency to the situation. Apparently, these vampires are victims of a parasite-born virus that is capable of multiplying exponentially and overtaking the entire globe if left unchecked. It's up to a grandfatherly survivor of Hitler's death camps and a recently fired scientist from the Center of Disease Control to save the world. Del Toro's artful mix of Bram Stoker and Michael Crichton is spiced with graphic descriptions of grisly battles that beg for cinematic treatment. The cliffhanger ending will leave you a) expecting a movie within the year, and b) eagerly awaiting the next installment despite your normally lofty literary tastes.
Although Sarah Waters' "The Little Stranger" also falls into the horror genre, it couldn't be more different that "The Strain." Del Toro's novel is set in the skyscrapers and subterranean subway networks of contemporary New York City; "The Little Stranger" is set in the bucolic countryside of 1947 Warwickshire, England, and centers upon strange happenings at Hundreds Hall, a decaying manor that is consuming the pocketbook and possibly the sanity of its aristocratic occupants.
Oddly, I found "The Little Stranger" to be the more unsettling of the two books. Del Toro isn't coy about the nature of his monsters. The demons in his book are all too real; they may cling to the shadows and dark corners of the night, but when they spring out for the kill, they are all hiss, stink, and tangible body impact. Waters chooses to be more elliptical about the exact nature of the goings on at Hundreds Hall, and that is the chilling charm at the heart of her book's success.
"The Little Stranger" is narrated by Dr. Farraday, a country doctor whose initial visit to the Ayres family at Hundreds Hall is prompted by the sudden illness of their sole maid, Betty. Dr. Farraday had visited the Hall once before as a young boy, when his working class mother managed to talk a servant into showing young Farraday the Hall's interior rooms while a busy civic event took place on the home's grounds. The older Farraday is shocked at the Hall's state of decay; the peeling wallpaper and sagging ceilings bear only a slight resemblance to the grand palace he viewed with a child's astonished eyes. The Ayres family has suffered with time, too. Mr. Ayres is deceased, his wife is now a frail and aging beauty, and the Ayres' only son, Roderick, has been mentally and physically crippled by his service in WWII. Only daughter Caroline, a thick-ankled spinster who is fond of wearing shapeless woolen shifts and sturdy shoes, seems to emit a sense of animal vitality. The Ayres's only other child, Susan, died of diphtheria when she was very young.
The physical clues to the deadly mystery haunting Hundreds Hall are maddeningly ambiguous. A key thrown into the snow, smudged burn marks that slowly proliferate on the library's walls and ceiling, childlike scribbles that are discovered on woodwork and behind furniture, the sound of whistles and tinkling bells emanating from the Hall's ancient servant-summons system -- all of these can be dismissed by a bit of agile rationalization, and Dr. Farraday does his best to calm the growing fears of his upper crust clientele.
The true suspense in Waters' novel is mental, in the best gothic tradition of "The Turn of the Screw." The psychological tension within and between characters is at once subtle and overpowering. Dr. Farraday, an "up-from-his-bootstraps" local success story, is simultaneously charmed with the outdated eloquence of the Ayres family and revolted at his lapdog attempts to worm his way into their gentrified circle. (In one of the book's telling passages, Farraday looks at his image in a mirror before he visits the Hall and worries whether he looks like a balding grocer.) His initial tepid appraisal of Caroline gradually grows into a physical obsession; the tiny line of sweat that always appears on her upper lip after walking the family dog slowly transforms from turnoff to turn on. Caroline's animal vitality runs hot and cold with Farraday; she alternately urges him on and pushes him away with fear and disgust. Mrs. Ayres admits to Farraday that she has always been indifferent to Roderick and Carolyn; the only child she ever loved with maternal passion was Susan. Roderick feels that the house itself is a monster that can never be given enough repair and upkeep; the burden of his family's legacy is slowly consuming him.
Is it possible that repressed sexual desires and bottled-up mental torment can ultimately call forth "a little stranger" who wreaks havoc on its victims? If so, what is the nature of this "little stranger?" Is it based in the mind, or in reality, or somewhere in between? It is Sarah Waters' artful working of the "in between" that makes her book so memorable. Waters' refusal to spell out the answer forces each reader to reach his or her own conclusion based upon their own internal stranger. Del Toro's vampires may cause your heart to pound wildly as they pounce on their next victim, but when the dust settles, that's the end of it. Sarah Waters' novel will prompt a little tickle on the back of your neck that will refuse to go away. An evil that is never decisively identified is difficult to decisively ignore. Don't forget your night light
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