Blood Mask: A Novel of Suspense

First off, I should probably let you know I am biased toward Joyce Carol Oates books. And since Lauren Kelly is simply a nom de plume for Joyce Carol Oates, I am probably pre-disposed to enjoy the book. Which I did. Immensely. Oates has this wonderful ability to weave the character's stories around each other. As you learn more about one character, it opens up questions about other characters in the book. In Blood Mask, the Aunt Drewe character who is taking care of her niece Marta is a very bizarre person. Each time Drewe does something, Marta must deal with the consequences. What you question each time is how Marta is affected by her relationship with her aunt and her aunt's weird behavior. This book is suspenseful in parts, gory, sad and above all a fascinating look at the art world and bio-art in particular.

This horrific suspense novel will keep you guessing to the very end. It is the story of young Marta/Annemarie, who lives with her aunt Drewe Hildebrand in upstate New York, on a rural estate turned into an artist's colony. When Marta's father is imprisoned for embezzlement and her mother goes off the rails, to her great relief she is sent to live with Drewe, her mysterious rich aunt. Drewe Hildebrand is a self-centered eccentric who does her best to manipulate Marta (even changing her name from Annemarie) to fit into her idea of what a "daughter" should be in her odd world. The story begins with Marta discovered in a park, covered in blood, drugged and injured. As she recovers, she slowly recalls the events that led up to her beating and abandonment in the park and the kidnapping of Drewe. But nothing is exactly as it seems. Does Marta really love Drewe? Who exactly is the strange artist who sculpts bizarre masks with frozen blood? Were the fanatic Christians for Life who protested Drewe's last big exhibit involved in her disappearance? Marta's drugged state and her fragile condition after being saved is depicted well--almost uncomfortably so. Marta's life with her strange aunt and her even stranger artist friends is almost sinister. Armchair Interviews says: The twists and turns in the plot will shock you and keep you addicted to the very end.

A teenage girl is pulled from some underbrush in a remote wilderness park. "Caucasian female approximately fifteen-to-eighteen, weight one hundred five, probable assault victim, needing medical attention, raving & delusional, schizophrenic/meth overdose." When the victim can finally speak, she has a very chilling story to tell. She says she was abducted. She says that, as she was being dragged away, she heard her aunt Drewe screaming for help. Somehow, she herself survived, but what's left of her is badly damaged, maybe permanently and maybe more than anyone can guess. And the only sign of her aunt is her Jeep submerged under the rushing waters of the Shale River. So how did this happen? Or, the bigger question might be, what is it that happened? Annemarie Straube's life changed forever when she came to live with her Aunt Drewe. First, it was her name. With Annemarie's father in prison and her mother in rehab, Drewe, in her determination to give Annemarie a new start, gave her a new name: Marta. But as Marta, Drewe's niece, Annemarie undergoes some radical alterations, not many of them positive. She regards her aunt with awe. She loves her aunt and savors every kind word she carelessly tosses her way. And she hates her aunt for the love she withholds from her. Drewe Hildebrand, owner of the highly respected artists' colony Chateauguay Springs, is a real mover and shaker, a woman who can make or break reputations. What Drewe showcases in her gallery becomes the hot art of the day. But her world starts to slowly unravel with the appearance of a Scotsman possessing an exceptionally twisted mind. He sculpts a likeness of his model's head, draws enough blood to totally encase the image, then freezes it solid. The display of his "bio-art" causes a passionate stir among not only the art world but several radically zealous Christian groups. To some, the blood mask is a unique form of artistic expression. To others, it is the very definition of sacrilege. As usual, aunt Drewe cares not a whit about the opinions of others. The Scots artist is the current center of her focus. All else matters little to her. She might have fared better had she paid more attention. Marta has lived through several of Aunt Drewe's flings. This one, though, sets Marta off with a vengeance that surprises even her. While some believed that Drewe Hildebrand was more than generous in bringing Marta to live with her, the truth is that Drewe could be highly unpredictable. At one moment, she could be a caring aunt, trying to school her unfortunate niece. In the next minute, she might turn brooding, flinging cruel epithets at Marta and pushing her away. Now Drewe is gone and Marta is fighting to recover. The events of that one awful day remain locked inside Marta. As an unreliable witness, due to the quantity of drugs forced down her throat, her memory may be forever flawed. But, with Drewe Hildebrand still missing, the authorities interview and re-interview her in hopes of a br

After her family experiences numerous financial and legal problems, Annemarie, a young, precocious teenage girl, is brought to live with her eccentric and wealthy Aunt Drewe. She is renamed Marta upon arriving because "Annemarie is a servant girl's name" and begins to help her aunt at the Chateauguay Springs artist's colony that she runs. Like in Patrick Dennis' tale Auntie Mame, the wide-eyed child is introduced to a radical world of art filled with strange characters. But, unlike Dennis' comic world, the tale of Blood Mask is far more sinister. At the beginning we learn that Aunt Drewe has gone missing and her disorientated niece Annemarie is the only witness. The artist's colony is an isolated spot in a fairly conservative area and there is a group of militant Christians who have been protesting against recent exhibits of controversial "bio-art". However, there are also numerous other characters close to Drewe that are suspected of kidnapping her. Through the course of Annemarie's tale about living with Aunt Drewe, we try to piece together what happened in this tense, clever thriller. As the events are retold to us by Annemarie, things become more complicated than the reader initially expects. She has been trying to separate herself from the provincial life she was born into and will herself into a new identity. She speculates that perhaps she is really the daughter of her Aunt Drewe and a reclusive artist named Virgil West. She begins to grow into her new name: "Growing into strength and cunning." The validity of her testimony becomes questionable. However, she's not untrustworthy in the traditional sense of someone purposefully distorting the truth or burying those memories which are inconvenient for her scheme. Her memory is much more sensory, similar to the way Hilary Mantel writes of it in her memoir Giving Up the Ghost, as if it were reconstructed in an approximate way out of emotions and failed logic. Throughout the narrative, Annemarie is yearning to become someone that her aunt will recognize as worthy. She learns from her aunt ideas similar to those of Nietzsche, where being a weak follower with a small soul is discouraged and the strength and superiority of the individual are valued highly. Though she loves her aunt and is fiercely faithful to her, she also begins to resent her. She finds little warmth in this woman who may spontaneously hug her, but not allow herself to be hugged back. As with Aunt Drewe's numerous artist protégés that she initially took such an excited interest in, the niece is relegated to the periphery of her vision. Annemarie begins to feel abandoned though she maintains a secret conviction that she will gain her aunt's favor again. She dreads being dismissed as someone without a superior soul. The new person she has so fervently willed herself to become crumbles. This is when things become violent. The "blood mask" of the title, a frozen sculpture constructed out of human blood, becomes a potent symbol of