A Review of John Wooley's Awash in the Blood
by Tony Fonseca
Wooley, John. Awash in the Blood. Tulsa: Hawk Publishing, 2001. 246 p.John Wooley and writing partner Ron Wolfe have produced two masterpieces in the horror genre in Old Fears and Death's Door. In the former, the two tell a tale of a homecoming, where a young man returns to his hometown in rural Oklahoma, partially to face his boyhood fears there, only to find that the entire town citizenry has fallen prey to the creatures from their own nightmares; in the latter, a police detective is brought back from the dead through questionable science, and hovering between the realms of the living and the dead, he attempts to save his estranged daughter--also an officer of the law--from sharing his fate. Ultimately Wooley struck out on his own with the quirky dark fantasy Dark Within, one of those skewed "watch out what you wish for" stories where a mysterious stranger offers to grant the desires of the citizenry of a rural Midwestern town, at a price. Dark Within, however, was uneven and contained one of the biggest cop-out endings I've ever had the displeasure of reading.
With Awash in the Blood, Wooley proves that he is more than capable of producing an interesting horror yarn--although once again his ending leaves something to be desired.
Awash in the Blood is the story of small time televangelist Mo Johnston, a man who realizes his dreams of being the source of eternal life, once he becomes a vampire that is. In the opening scene of the novel, Johnston visits Romania in order to shoot footage for one of his ministry's propaganda films, but on his first night (All Soul's Eve) in a hostelry near a cemetery, he awakens to find some vile creature hovering over him in his bed. Despite the resulting fang marks on his neck, Johnston convinces himself that he has struggled with the Devil himself, and managed to cast him out into the cold night, a scenario which he takes as the new subject of his film Hallelujah--Not Halloween. In a whirlwind of events, Johnston's new commanding presence and mesmerizing on camera demeanor aids his anemic ministry, and his ratings skyrocket. Now he has the undivided attention of viewers when he preaches the word, an ability he always wanted.
But Johnston discovers that this silk lining is surrounded by a coffin, and soon he truly is grappling with the Devil, in the form of his baser instincts. His vampirism manifests itself through a sudden temper, the newfound ability to pulverize men who rub him the wrong way, and a penchant for sexual degeneracy. Johnston's first walk on the wild side occurs when he finds himself drawn to a topless bar, where he gets into a brawl and then kidnaps one of the dancers, who becomes his first victim/disciple. Johnston feeds on the dancer, and later on a hitchhiker and on a member of the ministry's custodial staff, and with each feeding produces vampires more lascivious and beastly than himself.
Although there is no Van Helsing in Awash in the Blood, Johnston is pursued by a somewhat inept police detective, who is reminiscent of Peter Faulk's Colombo in his ability to break suspects simply by issuing a continuous barrage of questions, and always returning to ask one more. The other character of interest is Johnston's assistant and video director, a twenty-one year old religious groupie named Alicia. If Johnston in his vampire state represents pure evil in the text, Alicia is the personification of all that is good (spelled G-O-D that is), and the central dilemma for our unwilling vampire is whether or not to deflower her, and thus prove he has ultimate power over God's creatures.
I won't spoil the ending here, but suffice it to say that Johnston's destiny is a predictable one. However, Wooley does pave the journey towards deliverance and heroism with a few twists and turns, including one of the bravest acts any horror writer can undertake--killing off a good guy main character in order to make a story realistic (to my knowledge, only Dan Simmons consistently allows himself this right, which is probably the reason Hollywood has yet to grab up one of his stories; after all, allowing Emily to live at the end of Our Town was enough of a feat; how many more miraculous resurrections could Hollywood execs be expected to accomplish).
Despite its pat ending, Awash in the Blood is a wonderful novel because for the most part, Mo Johnston is a believable and often likable character. An ex actor and 60s hippie musician, he has turned his life around through religion, finding that his background makes him well-suited for the responsibilities of a preacher. Although he is somewhat self-righteous, or at least seems so in his condescending treatment of the Transylvanian tour guide (who condescends to him in turn, viewing Johnston as the uneducated ugly American), he seriously believes that he can save souls and enlighten lives, and he sincerely wants to grant eternal life to his fellow humans. Once he is handed the superhuman capacity to do so, he at first considers using his power of immortality to help people; the only problem is that power corrupts, and vampirism erupts into sexual appetite. As the novel progresses, however, Johnston loses more and more control over his own life and over his own body, finding himself powerless to fight the urges that consume him. Eventually, he simply rationalizes his bloodlust by stating that he is doing what he intended all along--granting immortality. Whether his victims/disciples want it or not.
I don't want to give the impression that Awash in the Blood is tragic in tone. Certainly it has its pensive moments, but Wooley also has a lot of fun with what is obviously a comic premise. Wooley has fun in scenes where he has Johnston forget Bible verses, replacing them with garbled lyrics from 60s and 70s pop music. And as in all his novels, he shows his familiarity with the genre by having his characters interact with it, at times referring to older vampire texts in their conversations. Wooley also plays with the conventions of the genre, as in scenes where Johnston finds that he barely shows up on camera anymore, looking more like the outline of a human against the night sky (of course, both he and Alicia love this effect and use it to full advantage). This dialogue with the genre is delightful for readers who are well-versed in horror, and it is not so academic that it would turn off novice children of the night.
Wooley has worked variously as a filmmaker, scenarist, musician, music historian, journalist, and teacher, and now seems to be making waves as a novelist as well. Awash in the Blood shows marked improvement in Wooley's handling of style and story over Dark Within. It deserves the same praise that his two efforts with Ron Wolfe have had bestowed upon them, and attests to Wooley's bright future in the horror genre.