She Wakes by Jack Ketchum
She Wakes
Jack Ketchum
September 2004 (1989)
Leisure Books
355 pages
Horror / Religious
This book has been on my list since it was mentioned that it was one the only or few horror books to take place at Easter, but also takes place in Greece. After hearing the host of Michaels’ Grim Reads talk about Jack Ketchum’s time visiting Greece, I was intrigued.
We’re first introduced to Jordan Chase who is compelled to come back to Greece after having a profound mystical experience at ruins on Delos island. He becomes intertwined with a group of travellers living it up. Dodgson, Billie and their friends; fellow tourists on the Greek island of Mykonos where they meet fellow traveller and seductress, Leila. There is more to her than meets the eye, and after she and Dodgson split in a fiery breakup, her temper turns toward him and his friends, then everyone on the island in her path to claiming him as her own. Soon it becomes clear there is more under the surface and ancient entities have awoken alongside her wrath.
A woman scorned…
Aside from the lush descriptions and obvious love of the islands that Ketchum shares, I am drawn most to the stoic tomb raider Chase; and on the opposite end of the spectrum, Xenia, the bartender She is a brash and beautiful woman that takes no crap and I just love her. The juxtaposition of those characters is refreshing when quite a few of the travellers, especially the women, are really fairly beige.
I suppose most seems beige when set against the backdrop of sparkling waters, blue skies, baskets of flowers, endless beach and bouzouki music. A little attention is paid to the local lizards and food too, as you would notice travelling Greece. The tourists as we come to know them do not spend the whole visit partying and rutting but do live it up. They sleep in late and stay up until the wee hours. Indeed, the first half of the book holds very little horror. It is not until the true meaning of Chase’s visions in the tomb and the various visions and dreams everyone seem to be happen take hold in the last half of the book that the theme of rebirth and renewal – in the most extreme and violent ways – becomes apparent. Then the blue sky is dark, the music is replaced by screams, and flames replace flowers.
Not a top pick for those new to Ketchum…
I found the writing to be overly poetic at times, and downright impressionistic at others. Not usually what I go for in horror. By the authors own admission, it remains as near juvenalia and ‘warts and all’ since it was his fourth book and he’d been trying something quite different to being with.
If you are interested in travel style horror like Teresa’s or the ruins but don’t go for body horror then She Wakes would be a good fit. to paraphrase Mikhael this book accurately captures Greece in the 1980s so if you’ve traveled there or a living grease this is also super interesting. it also really appeals to the armchair traveler like myself who would like to see the Greek Islands some day.