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I'm listening to a book called Bloodline, a thriller. I'm really enjoying it, but as always with books like this, I'm anticipating the mystery.
1. It takes place in the mid-sixties. A pregnant woman, Joan, moves with her boyfriend, Deck (Deck?) to his small hometown. The reasons for the move are, she was the victim of a violent mugging, and he wants to avoid the draft. (His father is head of the draft board.)
From the beginning, things are unsettling. The men are a bit too friendly with her. Everyone takes an interest that seems to go beyond small town friendliness, or even nosiness. People know about her actions almost immediately. And there's a peculiar possessiveness about the baby she's carrying.
I'm getting very strong Rosemary's Baby/Stepford Wives vibes. There's something peculiar about this pregnancy, although so far Joan isn't having problems the way Rosemary did. But her "wonderful" OBGYN is abrupt, controlling, and uninterested in giving her a physical exam. There's a men's club women are excluded from—although there is a women's club as well, though apparently one of their duties is to provide food for the men's club.
But the really odd thing (so far) is that while Joan and Deck aren't married—seemingly by his choice—he wants everyone to think they are because small town, etc., etc., etc. She doesn't seem to have any objections to them getting married, so what's the deal?
I'm also getting a Lovecraftian vibe.
2. There's also a great deal of inexplicable hostility from the women in the town. Perhaps because Joan is the Chosen One?
The Lovecraftian vibe is stronger. The town was founded by Germans and one of the women collects little racist figurines that also have fishlike characteristics. (Lovecraft wasn't of German descent that I know of, but he was a raging xenophobe, and his monsters are sea creatures.)
There's also a subplot about a young boy who disappeared twenty years ago. Now he's returned and Joan, who is a reporter, is trying to write a story about what happened. Coincidentally, the date of his disappearance is the same as the day Joan is due to give birth.
Joan is from the little town. We haven't been told this, but why did her mother always keep them moving? And how come she and her boyfriend—and now the formerly-missing boy—all have the same odd polio vaccine scars?
Joan sees the man who mugged her. Later, he's in a car accident and the ambulance takes him in the wrong direction to get to the hospital. Joan is assured that he's just fine. It was probably just his head.
The sheriff from when the boy disappeared is black. This is startling, as there are no black people in the town.
Joan is a kleptomaniac, and besides stealing from stores, she has stolen a necklace from the woman next door. It's a locket containing dirt from the homeland of the founder of the town. So, vampires?
Someone is lurking in the alley.
3. There's a party. The formerly-missing boy Chris, who used to be Paulie, makes a pass at her and is thrown out. One of the other men—drunk—tells Joan she looks like her mother. How would he know this?
Another boy has gone missing, a little Hispanic boy. Joan thinks the plot is that one of the town elders is a rapist and that the children are evidence of this. This is 1969. All they'd have to go on is blood type, not to mention they wouldn't need her baby; they've got the baby's father right there.
I still think there are eldritch horrors involved, because why else would they be so fucking excited about the baby she's having? (It's supposed to be because of his father, but his father is right there. If he is the father. Dun-dun-duuuun!)
Joan seems to think five and a half months pregnant is as pregnant as you get. She is in for quite the surprise.
4. Thinking this over—the town being of German descent, the Ira Levin connection, the title: Bloodline—I'm now rethinking the Lovecraft connection. I'm wondering if it's a Boys From Brazil thing, trying to breed a new, perfect Johann and Minna Lily, the German founders of the town.
But that doesn't explain why the little Hispanic boy was abducted.
Well, Chris-who-claimed-to-be-Paulie is just a grifter and a drifter. (Really, that's how they describe him.)
There's no-one Joan can trust.
And the horrible secrets are: Johann and Minna Lily were brother and sister! They had twelve children, two of whom lived and also married, but were unable to reproduce. So, beginning with them, the Lily tradition became for the Lily children to grow up, marry, reproduce with other women (vessels), and take the children. Joan's father was one of the town elders.
And, Joan is the original missing boy!
What happened was, Joan's mother wouldn't let her father take her, and on her first day of school, she was abducted by her stepmother. Her mother didn't know this and called the police, and by the time the important people got involved, there was no way to stop a police investigation. Joan's name was Pollyanna, called Polly, which apparently they said was a nickname for Paul. This threw the police off the track, but it also helped Joan's mother grab her back and get away with her clean. The town had been looking for her all these years so she could mate with Guy Woodhouse—
I mean, another "pureblood" Lily. But Deck is very Guy Woodhouse-like.
In the end, Joan, her daughter Frances (named after her mother's chosen alias) and a newcomer to town escape and Joan writes articles about the whole mess for the big newspapers and they live happily ever after. Which is better than Rosemary Woodhouse got.
I'm disappointed that there was no Lovecraft, but pleased at how right I was. They weren't trying to recreate Adolf Hitler, but it's still pretty Boys From Brazil. And there's some Sliver in there, with the dangerously nosy neighbors.
But what surprised me most was, there's a big chunk of Veronica's Room. It's an obscure play by Ira Levin, and I'm not even sure how I stumbled on it, back in high school. But I'm damned impressed that Jess Lourey knows about it and tossed it in the blender to make her very cool Ira Levin-inspired novel.
1. It takes place in the mid-sixties. A pregnant woman, Joan, moves with her boyfriend, Deck (Deck?) to his small hometown. The reasons for the move are, she was the victim of a violent mugging, and he wants to avoid the draft. (His father is head of the draft board.)
From the beginning, things are unsettling. The men are a bit too friendly with her. Everyone takes an interest that seems to go beyond small town friendliness, or even nosiness. People know about her actions almost immediately. And there's a peculiar possessiveness about the baby she's carrying.
I'm getting very strong Rosemary's Baby/Stepford Wives vibes. There's something peculiar about this pregnancy, although so far Joan isn't having problems the way Rosemary did. But her "wonderful" OBGYN is abrupt, controlling, and uninterested in giving her a physical exam. There's a men's club women are excluded from—although there is a women's club as well, though apparently one of their duties is to provide food for the men's club.
But the really odd thing (so far) is that while Joan and Deck aren't married—seemingly by his choice—he wants everyone to think they are because small town, etc., etc., etc. She doesn't seem to have any objections to them getting married, so what's the deal?
I'm also getting a Lovecraftian vibe.
2. There's also a great deal of inexplicable hostility from the women in the town. Perhaps because Joan is the Chosen One?
The Lovecraftian vibe is stronger. The town was founded by Germans and one of the women collects little racist figurines that also have fishlike characteristics. (Lovecraft wasn't of German descent that I know of, but he was a raging xenophobe, and his monsters are sea creatures.)
There's also a subplot about a young boy who disappeared twenty years ago. Now he's returned and Joan, who is a reporter, is trying to write a story about what happened. Coincidentally, the date of his disappearance is the same as the day Joan is due to give birth.
Joan is from the little town. We haven't been told this, but why did her mother always keep them moving? And how come she and her boyfriend—and now the formerly-missing boy—all have the same odd polio vaccine scars?
Joan sees the man who mugged her. Later, he's in a car accident and the ambulance takes him in the wrong direction to get to the hospital. Joan is assured that he's just fine. It was probably just his head.
The sheriff from when the boy disappeared is black. This is startling, as there are no black people in the town.
Joan is a kleptomaniac, and besides stealing from stores, she has stolen a necklace from the woman next door. It's a locket containing dirt from the homeland of the founder of the town. So, vampires?
Someone is lurking in the alley.
3. There's a party. The formerly-missing boy Chris, who used to be Paulie, makes a pass at her and is thrown out. One of the other men—drunk—tells Joan she looks like her mother. How would he know this?
Another boy has gone missing, a little Hispanic boy. Joan thinks the plot is that one of the town elders is a rapist and that the children are evidence of this. This is 1969. All they'd have to go on is blood type, not to mention they wouldn't need her baby; they've got the baby's father right there.
I still think there are eldritch horrors involved, because why else would they be so fucking excited about the baby she's having? (It's supposed to be because of his father, but his father is right there. If he is the father. Dun-dun-duuuun!)
Joan seems to think five and a half months pregnant is as pregnant as you get. She is in for quite the surprise.
4. Thinking this over—the town being of German descent, the Ira Levin connection, the title: Bloodline—I'm now rethinking the Lovecraft connection. I'm wondering if it's a Boys From Brazil thing, trying to breed a new, perfect Johann and Minna Lily, the German founders of the town.
But that doesn't explain why the little Hispanic boy was abducted.
Well, Chris-who-claimed-to-be-Paulie is just a grifter and a drifter. (Really, that's how they describe him.)
There's no-one Joan can trust.
And the horrible secrets are: Johann and Minna Lily were brother and sister! They had twelve children, two of whom lived and also married, but were unable to reproduce. So, beginning with them, the Lily tradition became for the Lily children to grow up, marry, reproduce with other women (vessels), and take the children. Joan's father was one of the town elders.
And, Joan is the original missing boy!
What happened was, Joan's mother wouldn't let her father take her, and on her first day of school, she was abducted by her stepmother. Her mother didn't know this and called the police, and by the time the important people got involved, there was no way to stop a police investigation. Joan's name was Pollyanna, called Polly, which apparently they said was a nickname for Paul. This threw the police off the track, but it also helped Joan's mother grab her back and get away with her clean. The town had been looking for her all these years so she could mate with Guy Woodhouse—
I mean, another "pureblood" Lily. But Deck is very Guy Woodhouse-like.
In the end, Joan, her daughter Frances (named after her mother's chosen alias) and a newcomer to town escape and Joan writes articles about the whole mess for the big newspapers and they live happily ever after. Which is better than Rosemary Woodhouse got.
I'm disappointed that there was no Lovecraft, but pleased at how right I was. They weren't trying to recreate Adolf Hitler, but it's still pretty Boys From Brazil. And there's some Sliver in there, with the dangerously nosy neighbors.
But what surprised me most was, there's a big chunk of Veronica's Room. It's an obscure play by Ira Levin, and I'm not even sure how I stumbled on it, back in high school. But I'm damned impressed that Jess Lourey knows about it and tossed it in the blender to make her very cool Ira Levin-inspired novel.