Ann Benson

It’s been awhile since a book has made me this angry.

There’s an undercurrent of homophobia and transphobia that runs throughout Ann Benson’s bloated, long-winded and uninteresting novel “Thief of Souls.” The story alternates between two different time periods, one the fifteenth century narrated by the former wet nurse of serial killer of young boys Gilles de Rais and the other the twenty-first century narrated by a detective investigating a string of murders eerily similar to the show more aforementioned serial killer’s.

A mere thirty pages in we can see where the present-day detective character, Lany Dunbar, stands on LGBT issues:

“I took a long breath before asking the next question…’Mrs. Leeds, do you have a regular companion of any kind?’

“I always hate that question. My first impulse is to say boyfriend, but we can’t do that anymore either. It’s getting silly, the way we have to talk now. Frazee had a great call once – female-sounding voice says, ‘My lover is missing.’ After the usual round of questions Frazee asks for a description. It took him about twenty minutes to figure out that the caller was a cross-dresser, and the missing lover was actually a woman but was being described as a man, the point of the whole story being that you can’t always assume things about people by looking at them or listening to them, because people do all sorts of things to make themselves look different than they really are” (28).

This could easily be disregarded as the character’s own internal transphobia, but it quickly becomes apparent throughout the rest of the novel that the author shares this opinion herself. Homosexuality is brought up in both narratives and both quickly and unapologetically link it to pedophilia. There are no characters or situations in the book that negate this wrong-headed position and it poisons the entire novel.

Indeed, the threat of the “Other,” in this case someone who doesn’t fit into the author’s personal notion of the moral, heterosexual world, permeates every page of the story. In a situation similar to the section of the novel quoted above, Wilbur Durand, the serial killer in the twenty-first century narrative, is painted as a threat merely because of his preternaturally high speaking voice:

“His voice surprised me; I expected it to have a spellbinding quality, along the lines of Vincent Price or Will Lyman. But instead of the rich, commanding voice I anticipated, he put out a series of high-pitched utterances that coalesced, against all odds, into a demand.

“An alto, if he was a singer – not a man’s voice at all, but not really a woman’s either. If he’d called me on the phone, I wouldn’t have been able to tell what sex he was. His voice almost had a fake quality to it, as if he were speaking through some distortion device or from underwater; every word felt like metal scraped on metal” (316).

The idea of LGBT people being “unnatural” is firmly presented in the coda of this scene. Once Durand stalks his way out of the police station, this exchange occurs between Dunbar and her desk sergeant:

“’Jeez, Louise,’ the desk sergeant finally said, ‘what the hell was that?’

“’I don’t know,’ I breathed. ‘I think scientists are working on it.’

“’Good luck to them,’ Spence said” (318).

But Benson saves her worst piece of homophobia for last. When the prep for Durand’s trial is taking place and a jury is being selected, Dunbar makes this rueful observation:

“…the ideal jury for Wilbur Durand, a cookie cutter group of childless males with questionable gender identity, an inborn sense of entitlement, and flexible social mores, could not be created even by the most fastidious jury consultant” (475).

Frankly, it shocks me that this was published in 2002. As a society we should’ve progressed from these stereotypical and dangerous representations of LGBT people in fiction. It appalls me that a publishing house would publish this drivel and still have it in print. Obviously we still have a long way to go. show less

In this novel Ann Benson presents us with intertwined stories of parallel outbreaks of the plague centuries apart. The first is set in 1348 when a Jewish physician - hiding his religion and his crimes - is sent to the court of the Plantagenet king, Edward I of England to protect the royal family from the infectious disease. In 2005, the world has turned into a biological police state due to 'the Outbreaks' a few years back that defied the medical world in its claim of victims. Janie Crowe, a show more 'reassigned' surgeon, is working to complete her thesis in forensic archaeology when she stumbles across a long-dormant bacteria during her research. Now she must find a cure and rescue her friend before a massive outbreak claims the lives of thousands, while Alejandro searches for anything to stem the tide of death that surrounds him.

This novel is a sound adventure story, particularly for a first novel. The scenes of adventure and sneaking around the Biocops in the futuristic part and the scenes of medical discovery in the medieval portion are well drawn. I found myself drawn into both portions of the story, and found the switches from one to the other well-placed. Benson never lingered too long on either, and the intertwining of the stories was excellently done.

I did have some minor problems. I very much enjoyed the historical aspects of the novel, though Alejandro's medical techniques and knowledge seemed a trifle too advanced for credibility. In the modern parts of the novel in particular, it takes the characters much too long to realize that what they are dealing with is the plague. They immediately recognize Yersinia as whatever it happens to be, but they simply cannot remember what 'pestis' means? I found this extremely difficult to believe given the fascination generally surrounding the Black Death. Not to mention that it just wasn't suspenseful since - from the title - the readers were already fairly certain that the modern bacteria was going to be a form of plague as well.

So, especially in the beginning, the pace of the modern story is much too slow, and the revealing of what the outbreaks really were and the effects they had on our main character (while important) took too long as well. But despite pacing issues, this was undoubtedly a gripping read. A fine example of airplane reading. show less

In The Burning Road, Ann Benson picks up the twin stories she began in The Plague Tales. Dr. Alejandro Canches searches for a safe haven for himself and his foster daughter (now grown to womanhood) Kate. To evade pursuit, Alejandro has had to give up practicing his medical arts because that draws too much attention. But he still attempts to keep his mind sharp with an old book - written in Hebrew - that includes medical knowledge and alchemical recipes. But Alejandro is soon captured by an show more old enemy and his daughter falls under the care (and the spell) of a leader of a rebellion.

Dr. Janie Crowe's exploits in London have not made it any easier for her to be reassigned as a neurologist, so she spends her time working at a medical foundation. But soon she stumbles upon a mysterious set of cases of boys with shattered bones that catches her interest and threatens to expose a dangerous secret. But even as she is working, a larger danger looms as rumors of a new Outbreak start to spread.

This was definitely a weaker installment than the previous book. The stories were not tied together nearly as well - Janie's case has extremely little to do with Alejandro's troubles. The manuscript provides a tenuous link at best, and Alejandro's work on it is considerably less interesting than his attempts to grapple with the plague in the first book in the series.

I didn't like the way Benson handled Janie's personal relationships (although that may be a personal bias - I certainly spend four months away from my boyfriend without behaving like THAT), and I didn't really understand either the point or the methods of the underground movement she became involved in. The pacing in Janie's story was severely lacking in this book, which is a shame since it the double pacing worked so well in the last.

Alejandro's story fared better than Janie's in the continued tale, but it was still far from strong. Alejandro's degree of assimilation struck me as a bit far-fetched and
(MINOR SPOILERS)
his final choice to have the baby circumcised struck me as very wrong. Both of the child's parents were Christian, and to raise a child without Jewish blood as a Jew during a time when persecutions, killings, and ill-treatment of Jews was a matter of course struck me as jarring and a bit cruel under the circumstances. Particularly since Alejandro's faith is pretty well left out of the narrative, this move seemed out of character.

This one definitely suffers from sequel syndrome. The interconnections are weak - breaking the purpose for parallel stories. The characters behave unlike themselves, and the story lacks the punch that the first one had. This may be worth reading if the third picks up again, or if you simply can't bear to leave Alejandro and Janie after the first novel. But otherwise, I don't really recommend it. show less

I really tried, but I'm over 60 yrs old now and if G-d is good I have about 20 yrs left to read.
this book just refused to get started.
It was published in 1997 and maybe writing, editing and writers have changed so much in the intervening 25 yrs that this style of story telling has become unacceptable to me. I couldn't stick it out.
Set in a post apocalypse medical police state (2005!) and alternating historical timeline 1348 southern France and England and the outbreak of bubonic plague, show more what's not to like?-I like plagues and medical history. I like alternative history. Plenty of interesting things could be happening, but alas! nothing. NADA and I'm on page 200 and so I flip to the backand start skimming.
That's all? BLAH. Bye, bye.
YMMV show less