“Achilles'
wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of
woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess, sing!
That
wrath which hurl'd to Pluto's gloomy reign
The
souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain;
Whose
limbs unburied on the naked shore,
Devouring
dogs and hungry vultures tore.”
Homer. THE
ILIAD. (Alexander Pope’s “translation”)
I am very familiar with supernatural and horror television
shows and movies, but I have not read many books from the same genre. Bram
Stoker’s DRACULA and Stephen King’s SALEM’S LOT are the most memorable of these for me. THE VINES was my first Christopher
Rice book. I enjoyed it very much.
The story centers on Spring House, the restored mansion of a
former sugar plantation north of New Orleans.
It was destroyed by a fire in 1850.
A gazebo was built on the grounds where slave cabins once stood. Manicured
gardens cover soil that once nourished the sugar cane and absorbed the sweat
and blood of the slaves who toiled there. An old drawing of Spring House is described of uncertain provenance and disputed
meaning: a growth emanating from the old oak tree restrains the
overseer’s whip that is about to lash a slave. Spring House’s current owner is Caitlin
Chaisson, heiress to her family’s fortune after the death of her parents in a
plane crash. She is married to Troy Mangier.
As a police officer fifteen years earlier, Troy caught the men who
brutally attacked Caitlin’s good friend, Blake Henderson. Blake’s high school
boyfriend, John Fuller, died in the same attack. Troy, playing the hero, befriended
Blake, courted Caitlin and eventually married her. Crimes and lies entwine the plantation and the people connected to it.
The story begins as Caitlin’s birthday party is winding down. She discovers Troy in flagrante with one of the caterer’s employees, Jane Percival, in
an upstairs bathroom at Spring House.
Caitlin flees to the gazebo flushed with angry memories: of ignored warnings
from her relatives; of her rebuff of Blake when he offered evidence of her
husband’s infidelities; of taunts about her lack beauty; of her father offering
Blake money to start a romantic relationship with his unattractive daughter. She cuts her wrists in the gazebo with a
broken champagne bottle. Blood drips to the ground and the vines start to emerge
from the earth. Her memories and rage fuse with the much older and more
terrifying memories and rage of a slave who seeks to avenge her people. Caitlin spots Troy and his slut leave the
house and head to the gardening shed. When she offers the vines her wounded, bloody wrists, they feed on her blood and then they
go off underground, disturbing the walkways and planters as the make their
way to Troy in the shed. Jane Percival screams as she witnesses his horrible death. The commotion
catches the attention of Nova Thomas and her father, Willie, who is Spring Hill’s
grounds keeper. They run to see what is
happening and are greeted by the Jane as she exits the shed, covered in blood
and swinging an ax. Nova sees something
glowing inside, a flower. Troy is never
found. The next day Nova calls Blake,
who has been estranged from Caitlin ever since he brought her evidence of Troy’s
infidelity about six months previously. Blake
pays a visit to Caitlin at her home in New Orleans. I can summarize the plot no
further without giving it away.
The vines are a kind of ancient, chthonic avenging power,
like the furies that pursued Orestes before Athena persuaded them to stand down when she established the Areopagite Court to judge men's crimes. There is reference throughout THE VINES to “the
justice of the earth”. But in what sense
is Troy’s bloody end justice? Capital
punishment for adulterers? Justice
implies balance: a weight has tipped the scale which is then righted by adding a
weight to the other side. Vengeance in civilized societies is not the same as justice. Vengeance answers to rage. Rage has no balance; nothing added to the scale will right it. Rage is only
satisfied by destruction, pain or death.
Rage can be tamed for a time, but its hunger for vengeance never really
goes away. This is how I view the creepy calm with which the story of THE
VINES closes.
