The Five of Cups

Rating:
Summary: Wow, why did it take so long?
Review: (Well, at least she answers that question in the intro, but it really ought to have been out sooner!)

This isn't for the faint of heart. If you want an author to coddle you along, hold your hand and give you characters for the non-sociopathic to identify with, maybe TFoC isn't for you.

On the other hand, if you're up for a balls-to-the-wall "Kill Bill" variety of read, Caitlin delivers and HOW. (OK, it's a loose comparison- no martial arts in TFoC, or Uma Thurman either, but a similar level of bloodshed and a bit of a revenge theme.)

I'm sure the flaws she details in the intro exist. I really didn't notice. Sometimes the heart of a work can really make (debatable) flaws either meaningless or integral.

And truly it's a look at where Caitlin's current work started, which is quite interesting in and of itself. If you enjoy her other work I'd recommend it just for that aspect. Her prose is ALWAYS lovely and carefully wrought, whatever she is doing with it. Her short stories are usually my very favorite of her work, but TFoC was definitely worth buying in hardback. (And while I'm a voracious reader, there are a very few authors that I bother to buy in hardback.) And what a lovely cover!

I'm not going to go into a summary of the plot. Buy the book already!

Rating:
Summary: Even the Great Ones Fail
Review: The Five of Cups is the previously unpublished first novel by author Caitlin Kiernan. It is a vampire story from an author who believes that the whole vampire genre should be put to rest for a while. Caitlin Kiernan is a very talented author whose imagination simply outbeats everyone else's in the genre. Unfortunately, she didn't put her talents to full use when writing this novel. Instead of reinventing the genre, or at least offering something fresh and new, she falls victims to the very same cliches she abdicates.

Gin is a troublesome vampire who has very little will to live. Made into a vampire against her will, she always needs to go against the rules and laws of the dark world she lives in. She kills remorselessly and answers to no one but herself. Even her creator, a two hundred year old vampire (who is also a very rich, very cold-blooded killer), has no control over her. Because of the many mistakes Gin has made, he now wants to stop her before she uncovers the vampire world to humans. But to stop her, he much first catch her, something that is easier said than done.

There are a few very powerful scenes in this book that you will not soon forget. At one point, Gin enters a church to confess her sins. Her visit ends in a bloodbath. The whole scene plays with a very powerful mix of sorrow and rage that seems to jump right off the page. But these moments aren't enough to save the otherwise tepid narrative.

There is very little to like in these characters. It's almost as if the author is trying to turn you off. Instead of telling us what these vampires are all about, she tells us nothing about them until the very end, when it's too late for us to care for any of them (the flashback sequences, however, are some of the most amazing moments in this book). We all know that reading a Cailtin Kiernan novel isn't usually a happy experience. Her stories are dark, emotional and very depressing. But this time, she crosses the fine line between being impactful and too depressing.

The Five of Cups feels too episodic and sligthly unfinished. It's almost as if the author gave up halfway through writing the book and finished it in a hurry. Caitlin Kiernan has written some great fiction, but this is far from presenting what she's really capable of. The Five of Cups isn't a bad book, it's just not a very good one.

Rating:
Summary: The Five Of Cups
Review: This book casts a spell, sustains a mood, envelopes you in language that will surely give you a euphoric reading experience.

This is a vampire novel that is unlike any vampire novel you've ever read. I don't want to give away much, so I'll just tell you the basics. The story concerns Gin, a disturbed young vampire, who goes on a very public, and very cinematic, killing spree in Atlanta. She's suffering from waking dreams, delusions, and the memories of her victims. None of this is her fault, but the fault of her blood-father, a nasty Irish fellow named Jacob Branlin, who raped her and left her for dead. Gin was never taught the rules, never shown the ropes, left to fend for herself. She's Branlin's dirty little secret. Desperate to keep his bastard child a secret from The Consanguine, the well maintained vampire organization that governs blood suckers, he sets out to silence her himself. This book is one bloody and exciting collision course between these two characters. It's filled with fascinating supporting characters and writing that will blow your mind.

The book takes several fascinating historical detours, the finest being an account of the Irish potato famine of 1847. Coming so late in the book, these flashbacks should be aggravating, but they're not. We're at the height of the narrative here. There's less than a hundred pages left to read and the dominoes are falling and all of a sudden we're going back in time to friggin' Ireland. Who does this writer think she is? I'm invested in your story. How dare you tear me away from it to get some back-story out of the way that you should have taken care of in the first hundred pages of the book. But it works. For a lengthy chapter I'm riveted and saddened by this horrific famine that befell the Irish, killing children, taking wives from husbands, husbands from wives. In just a few pages, Kiernan has made Death a very real character. Death is stalking the land, striking all these innocent people down left and right. Kiernan forces the reader to stare this tragedy in the face and understand that this is what she sees when she looks at the world. This is God, this is time, this is history. Life is death. The world is a haunted graveyard. From Ireland, to a plague of yellow fever in New Orleans in 1853, to the streets of Atlanta in the 1990s where the book is primarily set.

Anne Rice readers, take note: There is no romance here. Only death, insanity, stacks of rotting bodies, endless hunger and ruined lives. This is Kiernan's view of vampirism. And friends, it ain't pretty.

Yet you feel empathy for these vampires. Another reason to buy the book is Kiernan's lengthy account of the book's tumultuous writing and publishing history. One of the main reasons it wasn't originally published was because of the book's brutal violence and unsympathetic characters, especially the heroine, Gin. I couldn't disagree more with the correspondence sent to Kiernan regarding her book from the agent who considered representing it. You feel deeply for these characters, especially the protagonist, because this is not their fault. They just want to survive. Gin is sympathetic for this very reason, no matter how horrible the violence is she inflicts on her human prey.

In my humble opinion, this is one of the finest vampire novels I've ever read. It stands alongside "Salem's Lot," Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, and McCammon's "They Thirst." It's original, inspiring, and one hell of a ride. What an amazing debut novel.