BLACK BODY

by H.C. Turk ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1989

Gory and florid, but nonetheless dreary: a tale of a beautiful 18th-century witch--tossed about by fortune and plot--who, here, presents her confessions in an endlessly too-clever, bantering voice. As they're perceived by Turk (Ether Ore, paperback, 1987), witches are godly, soulless vegetarians who avoid ""sinners"" as much as possible (in this vaguely Manichaean world, witches are natural and good, while civilized men are sinners). Growing up on the Isle of Man, beautiful Alba is a rare white witch, irresistible (and deadly: involuntary vaginal contraction snips things right off) to sinner males. When Alba's coven is discovered, Amanda Rathel, demonologist, condenms all to die except for Alba, who becomes her adopted daughter/slave. While acclimating herself to life in Rathel's London townhouse, Alba learns that Rathel--once jilted by Edward Denton--plans revenge by marrying her to Denton's son Eric, ensuring Eric's death. Alba, raped, learns of her sexual peculiarity, and joins Marybelle, a surprise survivor of her coven, in escaping to Wales. Divined by locals, Marybelle is decapitated as a witch. Alba attempts resurrection in a ceremony involving self-mutilation (lopping off her own breast) and sex with Marybelle's head but, caught, she is jailed and returned to London. She marries Eric, but by sticking with anal sex he survives, until, drugged by Rathel, he succumbs to natural impulse, and is permanently unmanned. Cauterized by a fast-thinking servant, Eric lives, but Alba is jailed. Marybelle returns from the grave, and--in a ceremony of eating severed body parts--she and Eric free Alba, and all escape to America. Shamelessly sensationalist, often cloying, and occasionally just plain dumb: a truly dreadful novel.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1989

ISBN: 0000705535

Page Count: -

Publisher: Villard/Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1989

Categories: FICTION