Sweetheart, Sweetheart: A Retro Review
Horror aficionados may find the sentimentality of Valentine’s Day unseemly. There is, however, a way to cope with the hearts and flowers. Read Sweetheart, Sweetheart by Bernard Taylor. There is an abundance of flowers, especially an ominously fragrant variety of rose, featured in the narrative. And as for hearts, a formerly beating one is gifted as a wedding present. The novel’s first-person narrator David passively summarizes: “It’s so important to be loved, to be needed.”
David is an expat Brit who has lived in New York for eight years. During the last two, he formed a romantic relationship with a fellow teacher named Shelagh. They live together, but David has emotional and physical baggage that strain his ability to be communicative. From birth, he sustained a leg deformity which comprised his self-esteem and alienated him from his father, who despised such imperfection. Dad instead doted on David’s twin brother Colin, who remained in England. The siblings keep in touch despite the geographical distance but, after being married for a short time, Colin’s missives and phone calls become erratic and more abbreviated in content. David has a nagging urge to return to his brother in England. This gets exacerbated by an incident in which David suffers a psychically induced physical affliction. Abandoning Shelagh and his summer school commitment, he crosses the pond to sort out the perceived quagmire. Once there, he discovers that Colin and his wife, Helen, are both dead. David missed the message from his brother’s solicitor (lawyer, in American English) because of his journey. Sweetheart, Sweetheart was originally published in 1977 and is set during that time: hence, no cell phones. David is also informed that he has inherited the country cottage purchased by Helen where she and Colin dwelled. He has no plans to keep the property, but something unearthly intervenes.
The history of the cottage reveals rather odd deaths of many of its inhabitants, and peculiar events drive the protagonist to consume prodigious amounts of alcohol: “When my drink was finished I poured myself another one. I seemed to be going through the scotch at an alarming rate; but I preferred not to think about that.” David is indeed a procrastinator. Emotionally vulnerable and highly mercurial, his decisions are impulsive. He is an easy mark for a sexually voracious revenant with a tell-tale rose fetish: “I heard myself laugh softly into the seductive silence and thought vaguely that I must be more than slightly drunk. I saw the rose in my hand; it was giving up that scent that I had come to know so well. I held it at my cheek, happily, feeling the softness of the petals like a caress, while all the while the warmth grew closer, came closer, embracing me, and it seemed for a moment as if the whole room spun—a whirl of roses, so that I drifted in rose-petals, wallowed in the scent of them.” Intoxicating prose. And nice ambiguity achieved through suggesting excessive imbibing as well as supernatural sensuality as possible explanations of the sensation.
The impression of warmth is reiterated as things get more tactile: “I stood there while the warmth grew nearer; felt it wrapping me, holding, pressing. I felt the caress of fingers against my hot skin; fingers touching my clothes, running over my body, gentle but aggressive, exploring me with an intimacy I had never before experienced.” So much for his love life with girlfriend Shelagh. Apparently she can’t compete in the same league as an apparition. Soon the spectral seduction becomes amplified: “I was bathed in a hot glow, and my inner heat reached out and responded, hypersensitive, to the touch on my skin. My head swam. I felt as if I was being undressed. There was the softness of lips against my mouth, kisses soft, all-possessive on my cheek, my forehead, my throat and on my bare chest.” Going from “warmth” to a “hot glow” is a seamless erotic escalation.
In addition to some explicit sex scenes, a slew of violent deaths are graphically described in the narrative. Animals, in addition to humans, meet grisly ends. The local villagers comprise a close-knit community that doesn’t fully grasp the specifics of the demises haunting the town’s history. After David’s arrival, memories get stirred but it is too late to save those on the receiving end of wrath. As for the protagonist-narrator, he accommodates to what is required from him: “I reached out for her, grasping, clutching, and together we began our moist, sliding, hot fevered battle; a battle that raged long into the night. A battle where we were both the victors and where ecstasy was the weapon and the reward.”
A shout-out to Valancourt Books for reprinting this Bernard Taylor novel in 2015 and for republishing many other notable works in the genre. As an unconventional Valentine’s Day read, Sweetheart, Sweetheart fulfills the requirements. Esteemed horror writer Charles L. Grant (September 12, 1942-September 15, 2006) was a great fan and promoter of the book, and rightfully so. It’s a horror novel that is laden with atmosphere, deliberately paced to draw in the reader. As enticing as a beckoning ghost.
