Some of Your Blood

The book is written in fragments, semi-epistolary. I struggled through the first third because it was a narrative written by a semi-literate man. (the grammar was atrocious) I'm glad I did. Since I've started writing, I've scared myself with what my mind was able to conceive, but only on rare occasions. Horror fiction doesn't scare me as it did when I was a child--it doesn't make me look around and put the book down and hope everything is going to be okay. I felt that way again in a couple of places while reading Some of Your Blood. Without setting off too many spoilers, let me just say the end of the book struck me like no other since I Am Legend (the novella of course--not that joke of a movie); it was just that good. Some of Your Blood isn't for the casual horror fan. I understand why it isn't more widely read. The Freudian psychology used throughout is a bit dated. I'm not even sure some would consider it horror in the popular sense of the term. But if you like to think--if you like a book that makes you go back and reread some passages because of their sheer power, go for it. Be patient. This one avoids cheep scares for deeper, longer lasting discomfort. I promise that you'll think about it after you're done reading.

There's something delightfully seductive about being invited to poke through another person's private life - and in the opening of "Some Of Your Blood," that's exactly what Theodore Sturgeon does. Here, says the author, showing you the desk drawer full of file folders, look through these a while. Not that one, not that one . . . there, try that one. Sit back, relax, enjoy yourself . . . It's tempting; and of course you, me, The Reader, we succumb, open the file folder, and begin to read. The novel itself comes in the form of a case history: letters, memos, transcriptions, all detailing the life history and psychological study of a young man known as George Smith. It's not a conventional horror story, particularly not for the time in which it was written: nothing jumps out at you in the dark, no supernatural happenings take place, there are no curses, no ghosts, no monsters . . . well, maybe there's a monster. Maybe not. Shuffle through the desk drawer of Dr. Phillip Outerbridge and decide for yourself. Only watch out: with traditional flair, Theodore Sturgeon will have you believing one thing and realizing another, right up until the final pages. The ending of the book is a stunner. Not for the blood or the body count; something much subtler than that. Just be prepared to walk around feeling very chilled afterward. It's worth it, though. It really is. "Some Of Your Blood" was the first book by Theodore Sturgeon I ever read, and from the moment I closed the book - carefully, because the copy was quite literally falling to pieces - I was a Sturgeon addict. It's rare to find a book that is both heartbreakingly sweet and truly terrifying at once, but I think this might be such a book. It's probably not to everyone's taste; it may even offend some people, for the suggestions it makes and the conclusions it draws; but it definitely deserves to be read. So read it . . . You have the key. You know the way. And it is your privilege.

The author of this book, Theodore Sturgeon, makes frequent appearances in K. Vonnegut's novels. He is (in Vonnegut's works) the genius science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, whose magnificent writing talent is unrecognized and forever relegated to appearing only in trashy paperbacks. This book is a Sturgeon-Trout masterpiece."Some of Your Blood" contains one of the most exquisitely beautiful love stories ever told. Like a perfect flower growing out of a concrete wall, part of its beauty is the improbability of its very existence. The lovers, George and Anna, are surrounded by physical and emotional squalor, and having each other is the only thing of consequence and beauty in their lives. The story is told as a psychiatric case history in the correspondence between an enlisted psychologists, an officer psychiatrist, and a brilliant nurse case-worker. It is an exciting, quick paced, splendidly crafted novel. This is not a horror story...it is a gem.

Sturgeon lulls you to sleep with his exquisite prose even as he begins to slowly reveal his character to you. He slowly strokes you along for about 75 pages, occasionally prodding you gently in the ribs with a hot poker to remind you this is horror. Then,he shows you the monster, and just when you think you know it all, in the last pages of the book, he knocks you down with the punch line. Outstanding; this story has been resonating in my head for a week.