In Bookshelf Detritus, I read & review yellowed, often forgotten paperbacks that manage to find their way onto my bookshelf. The goal is to unearth pulpy diamonds. Expect lots of old school romance.
The reason for my picking up Obsession can be summed up with three words, two of them hyphenated: Tap-dancing vampire. Someone in a thread at Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books mentioned a romance in which the vampire hero spends his lonely nights attempting to replicate Gene Kelly’s “Singing in the Rain” dance, and I immediately ordered a copy. “Tap” and “dancing” are pretty much the magic words, as far as I am concerned.
Because Obsession was published in 1990, I was also hoping to get a vampire romance that doesn’t fit the subgenre conventions that’ve solidified in the last five years: the lifemates, the telepathy, werewolf sequels. That’s not to knock all the wonderful books that are still coming out (Keep writing them, ladies, and I’ll keep reading them). Sometimes it’s just nice to read something so out-of-step with the current trends as to be bizarre and delightful.
It was different from what I’m used to, all right.
There were so many good bits of ideas floating around in this novel. David, the tap-dancing, publicity-shy director/vampire. Virginia, the virginal, naive young reporter out for a scoop. If Hertner were writing this book now, she could have poor little Virginia working for a semi-sleazy celebrity gossip site, and it would be amazing. Can you imagine that TMZ headline? “EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Famous Director Caught Sucking Blood of Young Virgin!” In another nice touch, the hero’s friend/fuck buddy, a blonde, French Betty Boop, clad in Dior, clambors into the house through a second story window. William Shakespeare is somehow involved in the backstory? These were all very promising signs!
But sadly, the book was a bust with me. First, I got my hopes up for something more madcap, in the style of Diana Wynne Jones’s Deep Secret (LOVE). Tap dancing! French vampires! Urban fantasy! Journalism! Wrong. This is a classic, 80s-style romance. Alpha male ambivalent about his own impulses seduces virginal young girl because they are soulmates. There are troubles. They recover from said troubles.
Now, I often love this storyline, when it’s well executed. But David’s kind of an obnoxious prude, and she’s a dreamy nerdgirl stereogirl. She has such a vivid imagination that the world always disappoints her! But he is the PERFECT MAN. And he yearns for youth and purity that only SHE can provide, because she is UNTOUCHED. Jesus, codependent, much? To be fair, it’s not the author’s fault that this sobby emo business just makes me roll my eyes in a paranormal. For some reason, romantic melodrama just works better for me without the vampires and the blood and the element of “the horror, oh the horror.”
Also, this:
It is a type of transformation, I suppose,” David said, his eyes melancholy, yet luminous with reflected moonlight. “You won’t be quite the childlike creature you are now, I’m sure. I’ll miss the old Veronica but welcome the new. This can only bring us closer, unite us in body as well as spirit.
EYE ROLL. I think if a dude tried to calm my virginal nerves with that speech, I’d either laugh in his face or run away. Either way, the mood would be deader than David.
It’s easy to forget just how quickly the romance genre shifts, and just how much more assertive heroines have become in the last two decades. I’m accustomed to ass-kicking post-Buffy paranormal protagonists. Kresley Cole and Sherrilyn Kenyon heroines aren’t all slayers and martial artists, but they act–they don’t just react. Even Christine Feehan, who writes relatively traditional gender dynamics, has comparatively lively heroines. And once you’ve gotten used to active, independent protagonists, it’s hard to go back. Virginia’s willingness to let David “initiate” her is pretty appalling, especially since he explains it like so: “You would be like my slave. You would be able to refuse me nothing. Where I was concerned, you would have no free will.” No thanks!
And finally, as a side note: Oh god, the journalism. The ethics violations. Sleeping with a source is frowned upon, deary. Also, you do NOT offer to let the subject of the profile review it. The irony is that today’s newsrooms and magazines are the perfect breeding grounds for the stressed-out-career-girl-who-wants-to-quit-and-just-have-babies-with-a-cowboy that was such a hallmark of the 80s romance. (See also: Early Elizabeth Lowell.)
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