Publisher – Innsmouth press

Published – 19/1

Price – £10 paperback £5.00 Kindle eBook

A reimagining of Dracula’s voyage to England, filled with Gothic imagery and queer desire.

It’s an ordinary assignment, nothing more. The cargo? Fifty boxes filled with Transylvanian soil. The route? From Varna to Whitby. The Demeter has made many trips like this. The captain has handled dozens of crews.

He dreams familiar dreams: to taste the salt on the skin of his men, to run his hands across their chests. He longs for the warmth of a lover he cannot have, fantasizes about flesh and frenzied embraces. All this he’s done before, it’s routine, a constant, like the tides.

Yet there’s something different, something wrong. There are odd nightmares, unsettling omens and fear. For there is something in the air, something in the night, someone stalking the ship.

The cult vampire novella by Mexican author José Luis Zárate is available for the first time in English. Translated by David Bowles and with an accompanying essay by noted horror author Poppy Z. Brite, it reveals an unknown corner of Latin American literature.

Sex and Vampires have been long connected. In more modern times be it Spike from Buffy, Daniel from The Lost Boys there is an association with Vampires being the bad boys and girls who do whatever they want to whomever they want. The links of biting and penetration don’t take too much work to see any metaphors even if you’re not Freud. There is also a long tradition of genre making monsters representations of’ the other’ the outsiders of our society and this has led to often a queer subtext to many tales e.g. Anne Rice’s Interview With A Vampire – it can be delightful to see someone ignore convention to live the life they want to live. But is it really right as society has progressed (based on recent events I use that word very loosely) that we continue to ‘other’ human beings just because their sexuality is felt to be counter to society’s norms? In Jose Luis Zarate’s The Route of Ice and Salt; brilliantly translated into English for the first time by David Bowles we get a challenge to those portrayals; as the plot revolves around a memorable part of the story that helped shape our modern Vampires – Dracula by Bram Stoker.

The Captain of the ship Demeter stands alone from his crew as it travels the seas on various tasks. His role means that he has to take some distance from his crew, but he carries a secret – he is gay and at this time in the 19th century that is a crime, a sin and can be punishable by death. He holds himself back from his desires constantly. But his ship has just taken on several crates of unknown cargo that are bound for England and the atmosphere of the ship is slowly changing, fearful rats are seen to escape into the sea; the ship seems haunted by shadows and now strange dreams haunt the Captain. Something is awakening and will the Captain find this a nightmare, or a dream come true?

This was an excellently crafted tale playing with the reader’s expectations by using something that even if you’ve not read Dracula, you’ll have seen in one of the many adaptations. What exactly happened to the crew? The hook for the tale is the question of what actually happened to the Demeter’s Crew and of course for fans we know what those mysterious boxes actually contain. Zarate in the first half of the book plays with the reader’s existing knowledge of vampires and initially draws powerfully and erotically acts of desire in our Captain’s minds that mirror the power/acts of a vampire. This force that grows on the Captain’s mind sensually and triggers painful buried memories of his own past to rise from the grave of his mind. The prose here is gorgeous, dark, eerie and erotic we see a repressed man finding something that finally offers pleasure and release.

But the brilliant second part then challenges what initially just felt as if it was a case of the man who like Renfield gets bewitched by their Master’s pull. Instead, Zarate chose to push the horror aspects of the story. We see the crew who Zarate starts to let us get to know as individuals and we then see their growing terror as the force which the reader understands, and they do not start to slowly reduce their numbers. A force that while can be bewitching is ultimately all about feeding itself without mercy. This Vampire isn’t a man in an evening cape it is something very different and alien that enjoys its cruelty.

That then leads to the final act where we see our Captain link his past and the current situation into effectively creating a final test of temptation. Chillingly Zarate notes the punishment for vampires could also be used for those found to be gay. Its tempting to see why the Dark Side is so compelling but it’s the Captain’s humanity even towards a world that doesn’t understand him and actually fears him which is the most tragic element of the tale putting a clear mirror between the human and the monster.

The Route of Ice & Salt is an excellent compelling read. Thoughtful, powerful, and yet sensual; strangely for a tale linked to the undead it has a fully beating human heart at the centre of it. Not afraid to challenge the reader’s expectations and one I will not forget in a hurry. Very glad this has been finally (and excellently) translated into English and I think fans of gothic horror really need to give this their attention.

Note - the story has a great introduction by the author and some commentary on its role in Vampire fiction by Poppy Z Brite as well!