Priest, Cherie: Dreadful Skin
Dreadful Skin
Writer: Cherie Priest
Genre: Horror
Pages: 234
With my favorite authors, I reach a point that it doesn't matter what they write, I'll buy it the moment it's available. Cherie Priest is one of those authors. I never bother looking at the book's description either. I either pre-order or buy the book and do a happy dance once I've got it in hand. Dreadful Skin was one of those books I pre-order--even went so far as to get the signed, limited edition hardcover, because I love her work that much. I never bothered with the book description, but I didn't read it until a year after I'd gotten it in the mail. For some reason, I find reading Cherie Priest's work is best done in October. So I've been saving it (and now I'm wishing that Those Who Went Remain There Still will arrive SOON and I'm dying for Fathom to be released in stores). Now that it's October, it's time to read.
The premise: A nun fights werewolves. :) Okay, okay, that's not enough, is it? Eileen Callaghan left an Irish Convent with a secret and a mission, and that mission was to hunt a man by the name of Jack Gabert--a man who's cursed with an unnatural sickness that warps his mind and body, a man who's beyond the redemption of God. Jack and Eileen hunt each other across the United States in the years following the Civil War. Their story is divided into three tales, each building on the other. Priest takes the werewolf cliche and returns it to its roots: horror.
Spoilers to follow.
See, when I picked this up, I didn't even realize I was going to feed my werewolf fetish, so I was delighted by Priest's hints (she rarely comes out to SAY Jack's a werewolf, but she gives the reader more than enough clues to put it together) that this would be a werewolf story. The first tale, "The Wreck of the Mary Byrd," begins Jack's and Eileen's tale, and reveals the tales of the unfortunate victims of that disaster where the steamboat Mary Byrd disappeared on the Tennessee River between Knoxville and Chattanooga (a local horror story! Be still my beating heart!). It took me a moment to get used to the narrative, as each chapter is a different character telling their part in first person POV. But it's easy to adapt to, and it's even easier to tell who's speaking, even without headers identifying the speaker.
I absolutely loved the hints and details dropped in this tale: the obvious that Jack is a werewolf, and he's stuck on a steamboat anchored in the middle of the river on a rainy night when he can't see the moon, which drives him mad. But better still were the clues that Jack is actually THE Jack-the-Ripper, and I have to say, I loved that particular twist, as of all the Ripper theories I've heard, that's a new one to me.
What confused me, though, was the very end. For some reason, he can't escape the burning boat by jumping in the river, and through-out the book, this is never explained to my satisfaction. There's clues in the other two tales to indicate why this is so, but the fact remains that Jack lived through this ordeal. I'm not sure why Eileen thought he'd remain trapped on the boat.
The second tale, "Halfway to Holiness," is the shortest of the three, and told the most traditionally with third-person POV. Yet again we have Eileen as our protagonist, and she's following Reverend Benjamin Aarons across the US, leaving a bloody trail of bodies in his wake. She suspects there's more to him than his ministry, and sets out to find exactly what. She's hoping for a miracle, because in a wonderful twist, Eileen's fight with Jack on Mary Byrd has transformed her into a werewolf as well, and she hopes that this Reverend has found a way to tame the beast, so that she might learn from him as well.
In truth, this tale was a little too short. Aarons, in a fit of the "Holy Spirit" (he's actually fighting transformation, and the sounds he makes sounds like the speaking of tongues, another great twist), can't control himself any longer and flees the revival tent. Eileen follows him, and realizes the man wants nothing more than to die, so she obliges by drowning him in the river. This all goes by a little too fast, as it was made clear that Aarons had lost control of his wolf in the past and there were clearly deaths, but not enough to raise TOO many suspicions. Why was this one time different, and how did Eileen know? Or did she not know, but Aarons did, and that's why he asked to die?
Good little tale nonetheless. Again, the subtle details really make this book shine.
The last tale, "Our Lady of the Wasteland and the Hallelujah Chorus," brings the story together as a whole. Leonard, from "Halfway to Holiness," writes to Eileen in a panic--he'd left the traveling church after the Reverend's death (and suspects Eileen had a hand in it), but Aaron's son Daniel is following in his father's footsteps, in more ways that one. Worse, a man named Jack has joined the church, and they're leaving a wide path of murder and destruction in their wake. Leonard only wants to save the woman he loves, who's stuck with these fiends, and needs Eileen's help to do it.
This is probably the most horrifying tale in the book, and in some ways, the most confusing. Confusing because Eileen, when explaining what she is, discusses two encounters with Jack: the one where he changed her, and the one where she left him to die. The reason that confuses me is because I'd been under the impression that she was changed while she was on the boat: when Jack catches her after she shoots him and throws her into a room. Maybe I'm wrong, and there was something before the encounter on the boat, but unless I missed something, I got the very definite impression that Jack and Eileen never came face-to-face until that fateful night on the Mary Byrd. And if I'm right, that makes me feel like Eileen's two encounters are really just one, because it happened on the same day in the same place.
Also horrifying was Melissa's fate, the woman Leonard wanted to rescue. She ends up the lone woman in the troupe and, as you well guessed it, used by all the men to satisfy their sexual urges. She's stuck with Jack more often than not, and learns that Jack loves her and wants to make her one of them. Only the other women they've tried to turn have died, and he doesn't want her dead. She hates him, hates Daniel, hates all of them for what they've done to her, so in the end, she plays a vital role in killing them all.
As does Eileen. We finally get to see her change and she fights Jack one on one and wins. Melissa kills Daniel. But unfortunately, the Texas Ranger who'd been helping them is probably now infected and has fled from the scene, and poor Leonard was definitely infected, which forces Melissa's hand. That's the last scene of the book, him thanking her right before she kills him. Ouch.
And that's it. The book ends right at its climax, and I wish there was something more of an ending, some kind of wrap-up (WHAT'S THAT D-WORD?). Maybe Priest plans a follow up, but really, I think this book stands alone. After all, the focus was on Jack and Eileen, and no doubt about it, that conflict is resolved, despite the very abrupt ending.
My Rating
Worth the Cash: it was certainly a pleasure to indulge my werewolf fetish even though I'd had no intention of doing so, and once again, I'm in love with Priest's use of settings and details to make her story come alive. Though in some respect, in regards to setting, I'm very familiar with it, as it is my back yard, but even so: she takes larger ideas (werewolves) and stories (Jack the Ripper) and makes them an integral part of myth and folklore here in our history, and that's a very cool thing. She also manages to focus the story just right, and she doesn't pull back her punches when it comes to violence. Not that this is a violent book, but what's needed is what's done, and like I said before, she returns werewolves to their natural state: violent monsters who prey on humans, and she follows the destruction those monsters leave in their wake. It's a great yarn, fast to read even with the different POVs (multiple first in tale #1; third in tale #2; letters and multiple first in tale #3). Werewolf fans definitely ought to give this a go, and those of you who are horror readers, what are you waiting for? I swear, Cherie Priest's work doesn't get NEAR the attention it should, so if you haven't checked out her work yet, drop what you're doing and do so now.
Next up:
Clockwork Phoenix: Tales of Beauty and Strangeness edited by Mike Allen