Book Review: The Beasts of Vissaria County, by Douglas Ford
A single mother whose ex-husband is a monster meets literal monsters.
D&T Publishing, 2021, 228 pages
For Maggie McKenzie, repairing a shattered life becomes more complicated when a stranger takes up residence in the ruins of an old Florida estate with a macabre history. This stranger brings with him a sinister magic and an obsession with the disturbed grave of a witch.
Maggie’s troubled past becomes part of a larger, darker legacy of curses and bloody rituals, as well as a variety of beasts, both human and supernatural, that will prey upon her and those she loves.
The Beasts of Vissaria County is a mix-tape of gothic horror, a love letter to weird fiction and dubbed late-night horror films.
This book read a little bit like Carl Hiaasen trying his hand at gothic horror. In it, rural Vissaria County, Florida, somehow becomes the convergence of werewolves, witches, and Elizabeth Bathory, with a guest appearance by the famous Florida Skunk Ape.
The protagonist, Maggie McKenzie, is living with her son and her father after fleeing a disastrous marriage with an abusive creep. Her father isn't really much of a specimen himself, but at least he nominally cares about his daughter, even if he did like her ex-husband better than he likes her.
When a mysterious foreigner who introduces himself as a Polish count moves into a creepy old mansion up the road, things start getting strange.
This book was strange. The plot goes all over the place. There are flashbacks in the middle of tense scenes and then we go back to the current situation. It's half domestic horror with Maggie trying to escape her ex, who of course comes after her and their son, and half supernatural mystery as she realizes that her new foreign friend might be a vampire or a werewolf. Much of the story ends up being narrated to us by Maggie as told to her by a third party. It involves a convoluted gothic ghost story in which a young European would-be screenwriter gets dragged into some sort of early Hollywood Eyes-Wide-Shut cult led by Elizabeth Bathory, and winds up with a journal bound with the skin of a human baby.
Then Maggie and an Indian wannabe novelist she just made friends with get abducted at gunpoint by her ex, who trots out every line in the Abuser's Handbook and just in case he hasn't been rendered evil enough, we get a side story in which as a DHS officer he had a bunch of illegal immigrant female detainees sterilized by a government doctor. I didn't even see the point of this either as social commentary or as extra evil points for her ex, since the author has already by that time thoroughly established that he's a dirtbag and that whatever happens to him, he'll have deserved it.
I think Ford liked mixing weird tales and Southern Gothic with a side helping of B-movie monster madness, and the result was suspenseful at times but it just didn't quite come together. In the end, I felt like it could have worked better either without the supernatural shenanigans, or going all-in on the monster mash.
My complete list of book reviews.
D&T Publishing, 2021, 228 pages
For Maggie McKenzie, repairing a shattered life becomes more complicated when a stranger takes up residence in the ruins of an old Florida estate with a macabre history. This stranger brings with him a sinister magic and an obsession with the disturbed grave of a witch.
Maggie’s troubled past becomes part of a larger, darker legacy of curses and bloody rituals, as well as a variety of beasts, both human and supernatural, that will prey upon her and those she loves.
The Beasts of Vissaria County is a mix-tape of gothic horror, a love letter to weird fiction and dubbed late-night horror films.
This book read a little bit like Carl Hiaasen trying his hand at gothic horror. In it, rural Vissaria County, Florida, somehow becomes the convergence of werewolves, witches, and Elizabeth Bathory, with a guest appearance by the famous Florida Skunk Ape.
The protagonist, Maggie McKenzie, is living with her son and her father after fleeing a disastrous marriage with an abusive creep. Her father isn't really much of a specimen himself, but at least he nominally cares about his daughter, even if he did like her ex-husband better than he likes her.
When a mysterious foreigner who introduces himself as a Polish count moves into a creepy old mansion up the road, things start getting strange.
This book was strange. The plot goes all over the place. There are flashbacks in the middle of tense scenes and then we go back to the current situation. It's half domestic horror with Maggie trying to escape her ex, who of course comes after her and their son, and half supernatural mystery as she realizes that her new foreign friend might be a vampire or a werewolf. Much of the story ends up being narrated to us by Maggie as told to her by a third party. It involves a convoluted gothic ghost story in which a young European would-be screenwriter gets dragged into some sort of early Hollywood Eyes-Wide-Shut cult led by Elizabeth Bathory, and winds up with a journal bound with the skin of a human baby.
Then Maggie and an Indian wannabe novelist she just made friends with get abducted at gunpoint by her ex, who trots out every line in the Abuser's Handbook and just in case he hasn't been rendered evil enough, we get a side story in which as a DHS officer he had a bunch of illegal immigrant female detainees sterilized by a government doctor. I didn't even see the point of this either as social commentary or as extra evil points for her ex, since the author has already by that time thoroughly established that he's a dirtbag and that whatever happens to him, he'll have deserved it.
I think Ford liked mixing weird tales and Southern Gothic with a side helping of B-movie monster madness, and the result was suspenseful at times but it just didn't quite come together. In the end, I felt like it could have worked better either without the supernatural shenanigans, or going all-in on the monster mash.
My complete list of book reviews.