One of my favorite vampire stories! | Wounds

SILLY BUT SEXY. | Wounds | Jemiah Jefferson

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	• Wounds Jemiah Jefferson Leisure Books, 2002 - 361 pages average customer review:based on 27 reviews view larger image
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Just kind of... there.

Jemiah Jefferson, Wounds (Leisure Books, 2002)

I was recommended Jefferson a number of years ago by no less a horror authority than Poppy Brite, though she did add the codicil that she'd heard Jefferson was one of the big new things in horror, rather than having firsthand experience. When I went looking, I found that her books were out of print, which seemed odd given that they'd been published so recently. Took me a while to hunt one down, and when I did, I discovered it was actually a sequel. I briefly considered the idea of waiting till I'd got my hands on the first. Then I realized I'd been trying to get one for four years and jettisoned that idea, digging in. It turned out to be... not what I had hoped (I kept putting it down to concentrate on other things, and as a result it took me a touch under five months to make it through the book), but in the end, it's not awful, it's just not great.

Wounds focuses on Daniel Blum, a supporting character in Voice of the Blood, and his relationship with Sibyl, a regular human who is seemingly immune to Daniel's vampire powers. The novel traces their relationship, the power struggles therein, the ways Daniel's friends react to Sibyl, etc. There are a couple of extended scenes thrown in that seem to be there for the sole purpose of appeasing Voice of the Blood fans (I'm inferring from some of the language that the characters in these scenes were central characters in that book, while Daniel was more minor). The whole thing builds to an unnecessary, gratuitous climax, but in this case let's remember that "gratuitous" sounds an awful lot like "gratifying." Especially given the three hundred-odd pages that have come before it.

One of the other reviews I scanned recently compared the book to eighties fiction, and when I read that, a lot of things about the novel that left me feeling restless clicked into place; this is very much an eighties novel along the lines of Tama Janowitz, Bret Easton Ellis, etc. I don't know why I didn't see that before. Now that I consider it from that angle, there are a whole host of parallels I want to draw to books like Glenn Savan's White Palace and Jay McInerney's Ransom, but Jefferson, at least in this book, is not the writer they are. (A few other reviews mentioned that Voice of the Blood is a much better-written book than this, so maybe she is and I just can't see it from Wounds.) That said, I'm actually tempted to up my review half a star now that someone's made that connection for me, because as an eighties-fiction novel, it makes so much more sense than it does as a horror novel (which it ain't). It wants to tread that line between horror and existential angst that Koja treads so well in Skin, and now that I think about it that's another parallel I should have caught before (and now my head is flying off into comparisons between Koja and eighties fiction, which never came to me before--and I've been a diehard Koja fan for two decades), but the ending art installation in Skin just works so much better than it does here. Not to say the ending art installation in Wounds is bad, it's actually the best part of the book. But I'm not sure it justifies the price of admission.

Worth picking up if you were a fan of midlist eighties fiction. Otherwise, you can probably skip it. ** ½

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One of my favorite vampire stories!

Not only is this one of my favorite vampire tales, it also is one of my all time favorite books to read. This is the first and only novel by Jemiah Jefferson that I have read, but I will be sure to read more of her work. Its not so much that this is the best story out there, it is the emotion in the way she writes. She evokes a sense of anarchy that will make you feel uneasy as you read her story. At times, I was completely repulsed at what I was reading, but in an almost addictive way I could not put the book down. If you are a vampire novel fan, you should at least give it a try!

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SILLY BUT SEXY.

This is Vampire/Goth/Drugs/Sex...fiction novel. This book is just for fun and it's an easy read....not something to be taken too seriosuly. Allthough this is not a great book...it must not be that bad beacause years later I still remember the story. BTW, the authour of this book is a sexy black (maybe creol..can't tell) goth babe. >:)

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Wounds

Loved the book. This was not the same Buffy material that has made its way into vampire literature in the last few years.

You know you're good when...

...you make a reader loathe someone. And I mean loathe and hate and want to climb into the book to kill the character. That is how I felt reading about Sybil. Criminy, why couldn't some stray character just cut her jugular at page 140? I'm not fond of the male lead vampire, Daniel, so Jefferson had me absolutely cheering (and I mean cheering) during Ariane and John's cameo appearances that (and I'll try not to give any spoilers here) had Daniel "in danger," but when the 100-year-old vamp survived their coordinated attack and went back to Sybil, I wanted to send Jefferson an e-mail asking if she was purposefully irritating readers just to get us to send hate-mail. The lazy stripper is lewd, disgusting, stinky, barbaric, and has a more perverse desire to kill than Daniel does. Jefferson has created a monster from a simple human without transforming her into an actual physical vampire. No, Sybil gets to be monstrous all in her own little mind...

While the book could have portrayed the struggle for acceptance and intimacy that Daniel goes through with his friends, with his employees, with his insane, sociopathic stripper girlfriend, etc., in fewer pages, it does portray this struggle completely. Despite my dislike for Daniel, I started to feel sorry for him. The words "pathetic loser" went through my mind more than once. And when a writer can make you feel that much animosity for a character, you know she's a good writer.

As with Voice of the Blood, this novel is not meant for younger readers. It clearly depicts sexual and violent acts in both shocking and passionate scenes. Readers already familiar with Daniel's delight in over-the-top mayhem will find it again in the male lead and his raunchy "love interest". Everything is, again, so well-written that little is left to the imagination. Blood splatters are easily seen and the scent of Sybil's sweat and uncleanliness will gag you more than once. It's amazing the way Jefferson can weave the words into your senses; I'm hoping to experience gentler characters in Fiend. But with a name like that...

From Sandy Lender, "Some days, I just want the dragon to win."

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