THE RAGE OF THE WRONGED AND THE JUSTICE OF THE EARTH: THE VINES, by Christopher Rice

“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.