REVENANTS

by Geoffrey Farrington

Overview

The ghoulish misdeeds and conflicted psychology of the undead are memorably explored in this classic supernatural thriller, published in England in 1983 and previously unavailable in the US.  In the terse, atmospheric opening pages, an unnamed narrator finds a partially charred manuscript in the vicinity of an abandoned country house in Cornwall that has mysteriously burned to the ground. It's the "Narrative of John Richard Le Perrowne," born in 1830 to middle-agedparents, sickly and reclusive throughout a lonely childhood—and the chosen victim of his ancestress Helena, a vampire whose seductive presence leads John into a thrilling new anti-world of empowerment and glamour. But the initiate vampire retains a conscience, and Farrington expertly contrasts his reluctant surrender to the lure of the night with the amoral Helena, a coven of inordinately bloodthirsty fellow creatures, and the young farm girl (Elizabeth) who becomes John's creation, far outdistancing him in calculated villainy. The story is exactly as baroque and lurid as it needs to be, and its most effective set pieces (John awakening in bed to find Helena lying beside him; a feverish dream that's prelude to an equally appalling reality) have a truly cinematic intensity. Farrington's prose is pitched agreeably high, and his protagonist's increasingly fearful intuitions are expressed with vivid emotion and mordant irony ("Death . . . seems much sweeter when you know you cannot have it"). And the closing sequences build impressively, as Perrowne discovers the truth of the ancestral secret that has shaped his fate, travels to Ireland in search of the "Master Revenant" rumored to be the father of them all, undertakes a climactic "journey to Hell," and experiences a grotesque parody of theResurrection. Thus summarized, it sounds egregiously flamboyant; in fact, it's smashingly effective.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781903517048
Publisher:	Dedalus, Limited
Publication date:	02/25/2015
Edition description:	Revised Edition
Pages:	100
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

Editorial Reviews

  Far superior to most of Anne Rice's empurpled Gothicism, and, quite possibly, the best vampire novel since Dracula.' Starred review in Kirkus

From the Publisher

Jaded horror fans who might dismiss British author Farrington's 1983 cult book as just another vampire novel would do well to take a second look now that it's making its American debut. As Kim Newman notes in his introduction, the tale draws its inspiration from pre-Dracula vampire fiction and as such its Byronic hero, John LePerrowne, a member of the Cornish nobility, experiences what it's like to become a "revenant" in ways that readers will find refreshingly novel. Horrified by the excesses of his fellow revenants, to whom the rest of humanity are naught but cattle and playthings, LePerrowne seeks solace in the view that he is, like all predators, merely a part of Nature, but his exemption from death, to which all things in Nature are subject, ultimately denies him even that balm. Instead, he comes to realize that he and his kind are forever alienated from other life, even from each other. This is no escapist power-fantasy but rather a Gothic bildungsroman that draws its strength from the hero's tragic struggle to retain his humanity. It should appeal greatly not only to devotees of the genre but to anyone interested in what makes us human. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

The ghoulish misdeeds and conflicted psychology of the undead are memorably explored in this classic supernatural thriller, published in England in 1983 and previously unavailable in the US. In the terse, atmospheric opening pages, an unnamed narrator finds a partially charred manuscript in the vicinity of an abandoned country house in Cornwall that has mysteriously burned to the ground. It's the "Narrative of John Richard Le Perrowne," born in 1830 to middle-aged parents, sickly and reclusive throughout a lonely childhood-and the chosen victim of his ancestress Helena, a vampire whose seductive presence leads John into a thrilling new anti-world of empowerment and glamour. But the initiate vampire retains a conscience, and Farrington expertly contrasts his reluctant surrender to the lure of the night with the amoral Helena, a coven of inordinately bloodthirsty fellow creatures, and the young farm girl (Elizabeth) who becomes John's creation, far outdistancing him in calculated villainy. The story is exactly as baroque and lurid as it needs to be, and its most effective set pieces (John awakening in bed to find Helena lying beside him; a feverish dream that's prelude to an equally appalling reality) have a truly cinematic intensity. Farrington's prose is pitched agreeably high, and his protagonist's increasingly fearful intuitions are expressed with vivid emotion and mordant irony ("Death . . . seems much sweeter when you know you cannot have it"). And the closing sequences build impressively, as Perrowne discovers the truth of the ancestral secret that has shaped his fate, travels to Ireland in search of the "Master Revenant" rumored to be the father of them all, undertakes a climactic"journey to Hell," and experiences a grotesque parody of the Resurrection. Thus summarized, it sounds egregiously flamboyant; in fact, it's smashingly effective. Far superior to most of Anne Rice's empurpled Gothicism, and, quite possibly, the best vampire novel since Dracula.

Kirkus Reviews