GOTHIQUE

		Review by Paul V. Wargelin
SHOULD YOU? TIP JAR GOTHIQUE - 2001 by Kyle Marffin Design Image Group TPB - $15.99 ISBN: 1891946064

You think you've been here before and I don't blame you. The vampire is the most exploited supernatural evil of the horror genre.

Whether Dracula is rising from the grave yet again, or a hunter finds him or herself falling in love with a nosferatu, or a fledgling bloodsucker is preparing to spread his batwings and fly, the book market is flooded with vampire novels of varying degrees of quality. The true challenge here is to find one worth reading. Kyle Marffin's GOTHIQUE is one such read.

Chicago is a hotbed of Goth activity. When night falls, both kids and adults dress up in their finest darkness - from Victorian capes and lace minidresses to leather jackets and combat boots. Their common desire: for the movies, novels, role-playing games, and music depicting vampire culture to be real. Their dreams (or nightmares) are about to come true with the grand opening of the nightclub Gothique.

Founded by Marek, a power-mad vampire, Gothique is the perfect front to lure the Goth subculture inside to become members of his army or a source of food. Marek's creator, the waiflike Arianne, is opposed to this course of action, believing a vampire should never draw attention to itself. That's the basic plot. But GOTHIQUE is a multi-layered story featuring several fully realized characters, and Marffin balances the various points of view, personality quirks, and personal agendas of each character with ease.

It's a treat to witness how each of the book's heroes become ensnared in Gothique's web.

Magazine art director Jeff Stancheck has discovered his company is financing Gothique, and is uneasy about the association. His seventeen-year-old daughter Jacks (short for Jacqueline) is hounded by her friends to go the club. Colleen Russell just buried her sister Megan (who died in an attempt to reveal the truth about Gothique) and fears something has happened to her roommate, a Goth-rocker named Cass Lumbach, who disappeared after a night out with some Goth friends. World War II veteran Frank Hoelevich lives across the street from Gothique. He and his best friend, Father Gil Silverez, have witnessed the bizarre behavior of the people who attend the club. But Frank is the only one who suspects their true nature and prepares to wage war against the growing clan.

The vampires are characterized in extremes as well. The aristocratic airs of Marek and Arianne are contrasted with the animalistic brutality of their lackeys Drake and Fonda.

In league with them are a handful of humans - including mobster wannabe Joey Fortuna and vampire wannabe Gabrielle - whose despicable actions make them worse than the masters they serve. The atrocities the undead commit are appropriately gruesome and gory. There's nothing romantic about being bitten by a vampire here.

Reading GOTHIQUE is like running through a gauntlet of raw emotions. Adolescents court danger in the name of peer pressure. An elderly man struggles between the fear of losing everything he loves and the bravery to stand up and fight for it. A priest doubts his faith when confronted with the physical presence of true evil. A single father copes with the desperation and feeling of powerlessness when his daughter disappears. Forget the bloodsucking scenes, these are the moments that induce true feelings of horror. And this book will ensure Kyle Marffin's place as an author of true horror.

Four BookWyrms.

This review copyright 2001 E.C.McMullen Jr.

Return to Story Time