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charlottesometimes
This isn’t actually a novel, rather a pathetically short (just over 7000 words) A-Z explaining the fate of every single character from the Southern Vampire Mysteries series. Most of the characters I either don’t remember or barely recall, such was their impact on the story. Some get a single line, some a page. The tone varies widely, from the single line fate of unmemorable extra Hank Clearwater: “HANK CLEARWATER contracted gonorrhea.”, to the details of Terry and Jimmie Bellefleur’s untimely deaths in a road accident or of Andy Bellefleur’s teenage daughter due a heart defect. Not sure what the Bellefleurs have done to upset Harris so much. Then there’s the demise of town drunk Jane Bodehouse: After 13 books of her being an befuddled figure of mockery whom nobody cares less about she eventually dies in a drunken accident, which I assume Harris’ considers her just desserts. It seems a touch mean-spirited, to say the least. In fact, the “book” generally reads like a list of causes-of-death: Sundry characters, some of whom we last saw as children, are shot, drowned, suffer strokes, die in bar fights or from tragic accidental overdoses or breast cancer, expire mid-coitus, perish in a “freak construction accident” or a motorbike crash, or are crushed by a tree-branch whilst they sleep. One character I don’t recall is blown up by terrorists, one is afflicted by lupus as a punishment for her earlier transgressions and dies unmourned, and another dies in slow pain from a combination of arthritis and pneumonia, but his wife remarries happily, so that’s alright. Another unfortunate is killed by a werepanther and “The coroner didn’t know what to make of the body’s condition”, even though shifters are out of the closet now and authorities were previously able to recognise one in a half-changed state less than 24 hours after they made themselves aware to the public.
In none death-related matters, everyone gets married and has children as soon as possible. One of Tara’s children (the boy, obviously) somehow manages to become a senator, purely due to the time he was “read the riot act” by his “Aunt” Sookie after some teenage misdemeanour, Hoyt has a daughter named Moonlight, and some relative of Alcide’s is apparently divorced by his wife for having “dissed Sookie” at some point. Selah Pumphrey has an “unhappy life”, which serves her right for sleeping with Sookie’s ex. There are disturbing hints that Harris is going to subject the world to spin-off’s of both “Barry the Bellboy” and “Quinn the Sexist Meathead”. Most of the non-white characters go off to live with their own ethnic groups in weird little conclaves, which Harris obviously thinks is the natural order of things. Some character named Quiana Wong even opens an Asian shop selling kimonos, even though I’m pretty sure that she’s Chinese and Harris is an ignorant racist. Things reach new depth when we hear of a vampire version of Dancing with the Stars featuring Layla Larue Lemay, who is some sort of undead tongue-twister, followed by The Best Dressed Vamp and America’s Top Vampire Model. Basically Harris is determined to ruin vampires for everyone. I think she may have topped Vampire Baseballfor awfulness, although at least none of her terrible ideas have been committed to celluloid.
Meanwhile Bill Compton, the series’ most tenacious ex-boyfriend, becomes a millionaire due the use of slave-labour and unethical business practices. He also remains in love with Sookie because he is deeply tragic. He is rewarded for his exploitation and oppression by becoming King of Louisiana, which would be satire if Harris wasn’t so dumb.
Eric lives Happily-Ever-After in his sexual enslavement to Queen Freyda due to developing Stockholm Syndrome, although he is of course still in love with Sookie. To assuage his everlasting longing for her he eventually gets himself a new blond-haired, blue-eyed young man who resembles her as his vampire child. Not sure if this is supposed to be as creepy as it comes off.
Hunter, Sookie’s telepathic nephew, stupidly joins the army. His powers are consequently used for evil. Harris may write a spin-off for him too, if she can be arsed.
Jason had an idiot telepathic daughter (who, bearing in mind that Harris considers Sookie smart, must be pretty bloody dumb) who works in a dog-food factory, and a gigolo son. Eventually he dies for no reason whilst at work.
Sookie marries Sam and everything works out perfectly for her. She gets nearly 3 pages of text to tell the reader absolutely nothing about her smug, dreary life except which type of church she gets married in, which means nothing to me. Also, she wears white even though her meddling old ratbag gran disapproved of non-virgins wearing white, because the rules do not apply to Sookie. There is summat about her and Sam being invited to go live in fairyland one day, which I neither understood or cared about, and for some reason she calls one of her sons Jennings. Although I suppose it’s slightly less random that Quinn’s son being named Diederik.
It’s hard for me to reach any conclusions, since the whole thing is so lightweight as to barely exist. All I have learnt is that Charlaine Harris is a cynical, bitter old bitch who’s quite content to whore herself and her negligible writing ability for whatever profit is going. It almost makes me wish I was religious, just so that I would know for certain that the self-righteous old bigot would burn in hell.
We visit the standard locations for 19th Century soap opera texts; creepy freak show, gilded brothel, isolated country house, ill-regulated asylum etc. The brothel setting in particular is both overwrought and hackneyed, replete with sinister grotesques and dramatic but unlikely set-pieces such as the virginity auction. It also houses one of our two heroines, Pearl, an innocent in the midst of sin who, though cast before depraved, pimping swine, has nevertheless remained chaste, as well as being educated socially and academically to the standards of a lady by who knows what party. Our other heroine, named, with equal subtlety, Lily Lamb, is one of a pair of twins raised in obviously contrasting luxury and isolation by their grandfather after the supposed death of both their parents. Despite the blindingly obvious juxtaposition of their life-positions their narrative voices are almost completely identical, as well as being indistinguishable from the young female narrator of [b:The Somnambulist|9895397|The Somnambulist|Essie Fox|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328376071s/9895397.jpg|14787548] (Phoebe, another pure, white name). All three are prissy, boring madams given to suffocating even the most basic metaphor with the weight of over-explanation, enhancing the drama of the narrative by constantly throwing questions at the reader (Who could it be? Why is this happening? What does this mysterious statement/personage/document mean? etc) and random actions that further the story but make no sense. All three, plus Lily’s twin, the titular Elijah, have some mystery over their parentage. All are prone to fall in love on first sight. All have issues with both sibling and inter-generational incest which are dispensed with quite casually. All address the reader in an identical style, that of an author rather than an active participant in events. Although occasional histrionics and hissy-fits are described, at no point do the words of any of the four demonstrate any emotional connection to events.
All the lead and support characters meet in the first few chapters of the book due to series of coincidences and unlikely circumstances. They are artificially divided from each other into several different configurations in order to allow for plot development. After many pages of exposition and character re-arrangement the initial plot turns out to focus on the question “Where is Elijah Lamb?” (this is a direct quote, not extrapolation based on my ability as a reader to follow the plot unaided, as Fox is unwilling to trust the that her readers will have such skills), a question much like “Who killed [b:Edwin Drood|329957|The Mystery of Edwin Drood|Charles Dickens|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1353743676s/329957.jpg|3058467]?”, except that in this case I am not interested in the answer. All we know is that, after a few scenes of him committing sex acts on the body of a passive and possibly mentally ill Pearl he has mysteriously vanished, leaving his paperwork and Pearl behind in the possession of her ridiculously evil, sexually-troubled, demented drug-addict husband Oswald Black.
Having ignored this for some time his “uncle” is suddenly prompted to investigate the matter in the company of both Lily and Black’s cousin, who she is conveniently in love with after one meeting 7 years previously during which they barely spoke. Some Victorian gentlemen would choose to contact either the police or a private investigator before personally visiting disreputable houses to search for a possible corpse in the company of a vague acquaintance and a sheltered young girl who is under their protection, but not Uncle Freddie.
The mystery is swiftly resolved when Elijah turns out to be in one of the four locations previously mentioned in the book, which seem to constitute the entirety of English society, and which all of the characters regardless of their position on the social strata visit regularly. At this point the story rapidly descends into complete nonsense, as Elijah’s rescue party are obliged by pantomime villain Tip to liberate Pearl from the asylum to which she has been committed (concept from [b:The Woman in White|5890|The Woman in White|Wilkie Collins|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1295661017s/5890.jpg|1303710], all details identical to [b:Fingersmith|45162|Fingersmith|Sarah Waters|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327879025s/45162.jpg|1014113]) in order to exchange her for Elijah. Why they don’t just overpower Tip and take Elijah back immediately is not clear. Why Tip thinks they are in any better position than him to rescue Pearl is unknown. The unlikelihood of Elijah ending up in the hands of Tip in the exact same brothel as Pearl was raised goes unquestioned. At any rate, the group are offered a perfect and “legal” (insofar as the law has any relevance to the plot) way to save Pearl by veiled Madam Mrs.Hibbert (who starts off as a Lydia Gwilt figure ([b:Armadale|777108|Armadale|Wilkie Collins|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348113675s/777108.jpg|985684]), but turns out to be a version of Lady Deadlock/Hortense)([b:Bleak House|437135|Bleak House|Charles Dickens|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309203496s/437135.jpg|2960365]) but opt instead to get Lily committed to the same asylum for absolutely no purpose whatsoever other than multiplying the problem, before rescuing Pearl using the entirely different third plan of picking her up and running away, which is unsubtle but effective. Pearl incidentally is suffering from exactly the same plot-convenient drug-induced insanity as Elijah, which renders them completely incapable of helping themselves or others but conveniently clears up within a few hours of their removal from imprisonment.
Following the escape all the characters convene at the aforementioned brothel, and after a great deal of hysterical shouting Tip proceeds to suddenly offer Pearl all the details of her family and origins which he has withheld from her thus far, before immediately being murdered once his usefulness is at an end. Then a great deal of events from [b:The Somnambulist|9895397|The Somnambulist|Essie Fox|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328376071s/9895397.jpg|14787548]reoccur: a baby which was unknowingly conceived in Act II suddenly appears, as a happy ending is nothing without someone breeding. A lot of time-skipping occurs. Everyone’s long-lost parents/siblings turn up or are revealed during a series of revelations about their past and descriptions of events which happened before their birth and are more interesting than the current plot. Everyone inherits large amounts of property, and simultaneously finds a way to make an excellent living based on the very special talents they all possess, inherited from their parents along with the hair and eye colourings which Fox places great importance on, since they have to replace both personality and familial links.
Eventually all the loose ends are wrapped up, various characters conveniently murdering others off-page in order to save our heroes the effort. A postscript from 2012 describing the eventual fates of all our characters serves to completely remove the reader from the text, and Fox subjects us to 2 dozen pages of notes listing all the real-life places and events she has built her story around. She offers no explanation for the behaviour of any of her characters, which must remain a mystery. Although I suppose I can’t expect much logic or consistency from a book in which a 19th Century housemaid says to a gentleman visiting her employers house “Tell me about it!”
