Faces In the Water: a smart victim bleeds in all the right places ...

Greetings, commies!

Hope you had a fabulously dark anti-Valentine's celebration. Your queen of disaster and cynicism has a new treat for you. Check out my latest novel Faces In the Water. 

Dr. Sheila O’Neill is a young English Lit professor at a mediocre college, ostracized for her unfashionably right-wing views and crude jokes. Lacking allies in the workplace, she vents to an online friend Jake, a reclusive autopsy technician who shares her cynical worldview. A sinister bond forms out of their virtual banter.

With Jake’s encouragement, Sheila starts writing a historical novel about a disfigured Anglo-Irish noblewoman trying to survive in 17th-century Paris amidst religious paranoia. The novel is intended to boost Sheila’s career and set her apart from her vindictive colleagues. Plunging into the world of her suffering heroine, Sheila becomes enchanted by the idea of victimhood and the hidden perks that come with it. As lines between fiction and reality blur, she discovers that deformity can take you farther than conventional beauty.

Traumatika: a male demon behind the tormented woman

Synopsis:

Touted as "a demonic masterpiece," Traumatika follows a young boy whose night terrors come to life when his mother succumbs to a terrifying possession-unleashing a horror that will haunt him for life and claim countless souls across generations.

My thoughts:

If you enjoyed Pierre Tsigaridis' "Two Witches", examining the demonic feminine, "Traumatika" is a logical sequel, this time adding a masculine demonic figure to the mix. Like David Lynch, the director creates two-part narratives (think "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Drive"). My primary complaint is that the character of Abigail is turned into a dumping vessel for trauma. Too much at once. Medical complications, facial differences, domestic violence with a resulting pregnancy, self-administered abortion, demonic possession, suicidal inclinations - all too much for one person. After you see Abigail's body channel all that pain, you wonder what was the last straw. At some point you don't see a person. You see one open, oozing wound. And of course, the perpetrator of all that pain is male. Too much is done at once for shock value. That being said, I look forward to seeing this director's repertoire develop.