Preston Fassel
Autor(a) de Our Lady of the Inferno
Obras de Preston Fassel
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
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Membros
Resenhas
Prêmios
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 5
- Membros
- 40
- Popularidade
- #370,100
- Avaliação
- 4.1
- Resenhas
- 2
- ISBNs
- 8
- Favorito
- 1
The story is the union of two portraits. A young woman prostitute and her disabled sister, and a psychopath with a vendetta.
Meet protagonist Ginny, a troubled young prostitute with a taste for the obliterating altered state of consciousness alcohol affords, and a commitment to education as the key to redemption for those in her charge, a small group of pornai at the Misanthrope Motel. She’s ruthless yet compassionate, obeys the rules that have been imposed upon her, and craves and strives for escape. Her younger sister, Tricia, is confined to a wheelchair. Ginny regards Tricia a burden she’s resigned to carry, shouldering the responsibility with long-suffering love. Their banter is funny, lighthearted. They bicker and squabble, tease and goad, and yet there’s an undertow of bitterness and regret, and overwhelming frustration, each of them craving the unobtainable, a better life. While Ginny drowns her anguish in the bottle, Tricia escapes into film and comics.
Through the sisters, Fassel explores an important moral theme, recognising that it is society that places young women like Ginny and her small group of pornai in such vulnerable situations and then ignores their existence. Further, that while prostitutes exist in a reality where almost all the predators are men, it’s a dangerous assumption because, sometimes, one of those predators will be a woman.
Antagonist Nicolette, at once disturbed and disturbing, slices into the main narrative, at first offering puzzling intrigue and menace. Fassel paints her portrait with texture and depth. She’s a troubled soul shut off from the world, obsessive compulsive, living her life through a set of complex rituals. Her mind is racked as much by fear and paranoia as it is loathing and rage. Hers is a quest for retribution. She blames, but as is often the case with childhood abuse and neglect, the target of her blame is misdirected. She’s a repulsive character yet the reader is drawn into sympathy even while revolted by her acts.
In Our Lady of the Inferno, Fassel weaves together the two narratives, building the suspense, the dread, leading the reader towards the inevitable, all the while inviting them to look at that which confronts, to ponder, to penetrate beneath the surface of taken for granted attitudes and norms.
The carnal aspects of the novel are juxtaposed with a theme of transcendence, embodied both literally and metaphorically in Sally Ride: cosmic, spiritual, aspirational and social transcendence, all are sought after by protagonist Ginny, for herself, her sister, and the pornai in her care, as she struggles to find liberation from her pimp and motel owner, the outright misanthropic Colonel.
Written with grace, restraint and poise, the prose is evocative, at times almost poetic; edgy when it needs to be, sometimes suggestive; insinuating rather than descending into gratuitous portrayals of gruesome acts. And when the horror does take place, its detail is measured and carefully crafted.
Fassel is a visual, visceral writer, one in full command of the craft. Capable of conjuring a charged atmosphere one moment, a poignant scene the next, the author’s descriptive powers are enviable, especially in his depictions of character: “His intellect perhaps enough to make up for his lack of physicality but his social manners too crippled to cement the relationships he is always reaching out towards.”
Our Lady of the Inferno is as much a page turner as a novel to inhabit and thoroughly absorb. The story is well-paced, unfolding petal by petal until its awful truth lies splayed. Fassel handles his subject well, demonstrating sensitivity and insight, the result of considerable research and a natural empathy. The result is a novel that is finely tuned, ironic and hard hitting in equal measure, rounded out with a touch of comedy and a penchant for the absurd.… (mais)