V. E. Schwab\u2019s latest novel, “Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil,” takes a bite out of vampire lore following three vampire women across several centuries: Mar\u00eda, Charlotte and Alice.<\/p>\n
Schwab first introduces us to Maria in 16th-century Spain, a fierce and flinty young woman who yearns for a big and bold life outside her poor village. To escape, she marries a viscount\u2013 only to find that even a wealthy marriage still feels like a prison to her. Maria meets a mysterious, ageless widow who works as an herbalist, and Maria envies the freedom that widowhood allows\u2013 owning a shop, traveling alone, making her own way in the world without anyone\u2019s controlling influence. The widow tells Maria she could share in this freedom\u2013 with a bite\u2013 and a new vampire is born.<\/p>\n
Next, we meet Alice in contemporary Boston where she is desperately homesick in her first year of university. Her storyline includes many flashbacks to scenes of her life and family in Scotland, mostly scenes with her older sister Catty. These moments are particularly poignant as they explore the novel\u2019s overarching themes of loss, longing and loneliness. After an encounter with a lovely stranger at a house party, Alice wakes up sicker than she\u2019s ever been, unable to handle light and sound in a way that makes no sense for a regular hangover. She\u2019s hungrier than she\u2019s ever been, but can\u2019t stomach any normal food. Eventually she pieces together enough of the lore to realize what she has become, but still has no idea why.<\/p>\n
As Alice reconstructs her memory of the events of the night that changed her life and retraces her steps, we eventually meet Charlotte, whose vampire origins are in 19th century England. As Charlotte shares her personal history\u2013 and her connection with Maria\u2013 we learn that she is the common link, the tie that now binds them all. Eventually all three of their storylines converge and race toward an explosive ending that I did not see coming.<\/p>\n
Schwab crafts such nuanced stories for each of these three women in different timelines that “Bury Our Bones” might have been split into three separate novels. But ultimately Schwab is weaving a tapestry with these three characters and each one\u2019s different response to becoming a vampire. How and when do they satisfy their need for blood? What do they owe each other as a community? To what degree can they mingle with humans?<\/p>\n
Sometimes these vampires are vicious, and sometimes they are even evil, but Schwab always balances their humanity and their monstrosity. Sometimes feminist fiction goes beyond merely promoting women\u2019s rights, but also permits us to vicariously revel in \u201cwomen\u2019s wrongs\u201d and Schwab\u2019s villains are truly delicious.<\/p>\n
While we witness the transformations of Maria, Charlotte and Alice over time, Schwab asks us to consider how both aging and power sit differently in women\u2019s bodies than men\u2019s, how women\u2019s hunger and desire is so frequently vilified, how we all might become a little monstrous when we’ve been isolated from and hated by the community.<\/p>\n
Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for all kinds of things: freedom, power, love, inclusion, wholeness. They grow fangs and move through the shadows in a world that would deny their very existence. What began as an escapist vampire story became a haunting story about cruelty and power, love and loss, humanity and monstrosity.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Alicia McClintic is a book seller at Inklings Bookshop. She and other Inklings staffers review books in this space every week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"V. E. Schwab\u2019s latest novel, “Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil,” takes a bite out of vampire…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":314820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,67,132,68,3800],"class_list":{"0":"post-314819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-yhr-reporters"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115398252337719355","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}