Strega

By Stefan Isaksson

Strega
Richard A. Bamberg
The Invisible College Press
246 pages
ISBN: 1931468214

It’s not the easiest thing in the world to write a vampire novel. It’s difficult to come up with an original approach to the subject, and it’s not very often a novel with a unique and interesting perspective to Stoker’s old story appears on the market.

With Strega, Richard A. Bamberg publishes his fifth novel, and it’s not an original one, telling the story about Quincey and Victoria Morris and their struggle against seductress/vampire/arch-villain Morgan Stregocia. The story takes place in Albuquerque sometime during the 1990s, where Quincey Morris, father and heroic police officer, against his will is drawn into a struggle where he both has to save his family and stop the ruthless Strega from using an old Morris heirloom to resurrect the original Dracula. It’s the traditional story about the kind-hearted skeptic/hero who in time becomes a believer who stands steadfast against all odds and Stregocia – Strega – is the way most other female vampires are: sensuous, elegant, with a hypnotic gaze that’s impossible to avoid.

Right. But what does all this mean? That it’s a lousy book that should be avoided at all costs, simply because it perhaps isn’t very difficult to figure out what will happen?

No. That’s not how it is at all. Strega might not be a very original in the way it tackles the vampire universe, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read it. True, Bamberg is an author, not bad but not brilliant. And I’m not saying I could do a better job myself (number of books published by Isaksson: 0. Number of books published by Bamberg: 5). I’ve read tons of books whose authors have been much better at constructing excitement in their stories, but on the other hand I’ve also read tons of books that were severely worse than Strega.

There’s one simple reason as to why Bamberg’s latest is a little better than average, and that’s because I found it very interesting to follow the progress of Quincey – who starts out as a die-hard skeptic only to come to the conclusion that vampires indeed do exist (at least in Bamberg’s fictive world). Not that he has a lot of choice though, when he’s faced with the full fury of Strega. Many books of fiction dealing with the world of the paranormal have difficulty offering a convincing portrait of the inner struggle that its characters have to go though while realizing that things are not always as they seem. Imagine yourself being faced with the possibility that vampires roam the earth. How would you deal with that?

That’s not easy to answer, obviously, but I do find Morris’ struggle and reasoning very believable, and that in itself made it worthwhile to read the book. It might not be enough for others, but to me it was immensely satisfying.