Maplecroft

Here’s a premise for you: Lizzie Borden killed her father and stepmother because they’d been possessed by some kind of evil supernatural sea-monster. Honestly, though, it’s not that much more absurd than the plot of your average episode of The X-Files, and that was a crossover hit with teenage boys desperate for a glimpse of Scully’s cleavage. (To the men who were those boys, I say: you should totally watch The Fall, not only is it a great crime drama, you get to see Gillian Anderson in her bra, plus she bangs that kid who played Merlin. He’s not so great-looking. THAT COULD BE YOU.)

I’m not really sure what persuaded me to read this novel, because that premise really is absurdly terrible (as is The X-Files if you try re-watching it). But somehow, against all the odds, Maplecroft sucked me right in. It’s a proper gothic horror novel, complete with a never-quite-explained monster, a denouement offset by flashing lightning, a secret underground laboratory, and pseudo-scientific explanations of the inexplicable (not to mention convenient misinterpretations of Darwin). It obviously owes a great debt to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, in terms of style and structure, and even has a Van Helsing analogue in one Inspector Wolf, who, speaking of The X-Files, seems to work for some kind of government agency with jurisdiction over paranormal crimes.

I expected the prose to be dreadful, but honestly…it was fine. Not amazing, not terrible. My standards are pretty low when it comes to fantasy and horror: as long as it’s not so bad that it’s all I notice, I’ll give it a pass. For the most part, Maplecroft cleared the hurdle easily.

Something I didn’t love: all the major characters protested just a little too much about their atheism, to the point where it became obvious the author had a bit of a thing about it. I’m sorry for whatever religion did to you, Cherie, but this novel doesn’t just exist for you to gripe about it. And not only did you let it happen a few too many times, but…well, darling, you’re writing gothic horror. There has to be at least one chaste and innocent Christian girl, preferably Catholic, to inspire the hero and remind him of why the world is worth saving. And I know the hero of this book is a woman, but she’s a lesbian woman, so that all works out pretty neatly really.

There is a lot of gender subversion in this novel, with Lizzie taking on all of the traditionally masculine roles including hero, scientist, and carer for a weaker female family member (her sister). The sister, Emma, is also a biologist with an international reputation (albeit under a male pseudonym). The primary male character, a Dr Seabury, seems conveniently happy to be more of a follower when added to the Maplecroft ménage. No one encounters any difficulties in these roles, or even overhears a bitchy comment in whatever the 19th century version of supermarket is. It’s all a little TOO easy, which ultimately undermines the point.

Finally, that monster. Or monsters? It’s never really clear. I’m all in favour of leaving some things unexplained, but I would have liked a bit more detail than I got. And it’s not just a problem of ambiguity, it’s also one of discontinuity. Some of the different victims were affected in different ways – why? None of the sort-of-explanations even attempt to grapple with this problem. This again echoes Dracula, in which the characters had no particular vampiric folklore to fall back on before Van Helsing turned up, and thus lacked a frame of reference for interpreting the behaviours they were observing. I know modern horror in many ways suffers from the opposite problem – we know ALL ABOUT how vampires/zombies/werewolves are created, what their respective kryptonites are, how to dispatch them, and most importantly, which human teenagers they’re in love with. It’s the Anne Rice effect: monsters are practically pouring out their souls to us. Somewhere in between lies the sweet spot.

P.S. Apparently this is a series now, with a second related novel, Chapelwood, published in 2015. I have no current plans to read it.