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Angel Kiss
Determined to find wives, Jack Pepper and his neighbor, Hank, place ads in an East-West dating service, unaware that they are entering a blood-shrouded cult whose main activity is torture.
- GenresHorror
370 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 4, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 8, 2019
There aren't many books I read that make me angry, they're so bad. In fact, the only one I can recall without having to go through my notes would be Son of Rosemary. Angel Kiss, though, is on that list.
First things first: This book is racist as fuck. It's also sexist as fuck, but there at least seems to be a point to that in the way the book's theme is about women taking power back from the men who have abused them, and they lure the men in by being the submissive, pandering women they expect. To have the first fifty or so pages having Japanese women speaking their Ls as Rs and vice-versa, though? That's just straight up racist.
There's an interesting enough story going on here, but it gets messy and convoluted in the back half of the novel. It doesn't help that our central character is no longer the focus of the story, nor that I couldn't figure out what the hell was happening in the last part of the book. I re-read the ending twice, thinking I was missing something, but I'll be goddamned if I could figure out what that was about.
I do like Wilde's style, which makes it that much harder for me to rate this book a 1, but damn, I can't get past the rest of it. I see that the author chose not to reprint either this book or Makoto (a book that, at just a glance, looks like it could be as offensive and racially insensitive as Angel Kiss) in a digital format, and I hope it's because he can't look back on these books without cringing. This one, at least, isn't worth the time to revisit.
First things first: This book is racist as fuck. It's also sexist as fuck, but there at least seems to be a point to that in the way the book's theme is about women taking power back from the men who have abused them, and they lure the men in by being the submissive, pandering women they expect. To have the first fifty or so pages having Japanese women speaking their Ls as Rs and vice-versa, though? That's just straight up racist.
There's an interesting enough story going on here, but it gets messy and convoluted in the back half of the novel. It doesn't help that our central character is no longer the focus of the story, nor that I couldn't figure out what the hell was happening in the last part of the book. I re-read the ending twice, thinking I was missing something, but I'll be goddamned if I could figure out what that was about.
I do like Wilde's style, which makes it that much harder for me to rate this book a 1, but damn, I can't get past the rest of it. I see that the author chose not to reprint either this book or Makoto (a book that, at just a glance, looks like it could be as offensive and racially insensitive as Angel Kiss) in a digital format, and I hope it's because he can't look back on these books without cringing. This one, at least, isn't worth the time to revisit.
October 26, 2025
I'm obliged to review this one from memory. A good friend of mine -- the son of American missionaries to Japan (true!) was greatly offended by this book. He assured me that the psychotic behaviour that some of the characters engage in was not at all the case with real Japanese people, and that none of the exchange students we were interacting with in my tumultuous 12th grade/first year college time would spit pasta-like tendrils at me (as the possessed ladies do in this book).
Well, my friend was right about the pasta-like tendrils, at least. 🙃
So, the background -- in the wake of 1923's Great Kanto EarthQuake, a radical woman preached overthrowing Japan's patriarchy. She is executed.
Flash forward to the 1990s, in which a trio of young women who are part of an esoteric religion called "Makahari" (presumably meant to reference "Sukyo Mahikari" ) get the bright idea of summoning the aforementioned radical's spirit. She gives them great beauty and the means to produce the aforementioned tendrils from their mouths and... er... well. Anyway, the new gift can subtly drain lifeforce, or violently crush someone into pulp. The ghost is pretty mad, so she persuades the girls to go on a date-murder spree. At some point, a fourth girl is possessed but does not participate.
Two of the girls are killed when the Makahari sect investigates, the third is mindwiped in the hopes that solves the problem, and the fourth is left with profound cravings. All this is revealed backstory, however.
The book proper starts with two threads -- the mindwiped young woman (Michiko) is undergoing therapy (which will unfortunately unlock the mental blocks placed upon her), and Atlantan adman Jack Pepper gets the idea to sign up for a cross-Pacific penpal introduction service. His bemused "good old Southern" neighbour, Hank, decides to do similar. One of the respondents is a buraku woman working in a department store and hoping to move away from such prejudices as still exist in her country. The other is the fourth possessed lady.
Most of the story is in Atlanta, but the threads will culminate in San Francisco, which the enraged ghost has decided is a den of Asian sex slavery in need of cleansing.
So, rather a lot to unpack.
Some of the stories are indeed pretty downbeat, and even given the various intersections of culture, gender and class, arguably Hank's older brother is the only deserving victim in this saga -- and ironically, a Mahakari priestess puts his spirit temporarily inside Hank, so that the younger brother will have the necessary power-up and ruthlessness to Do What Must Be Done. So be prepared to have horror tropes played with in various ways. Character investment? You could do that... but if you have a favourite, no guarantee he or she will be standing at the end.
Mostly, I remember this for the odd motif (at the time, anyway) of red leather dresses. In a curious coincidence, an ad campaign Jack is working on has a mysterious woman in red, and the spree-killing ladies also wore red leather on their Grand Night Out. Aside from a few more appearances in the last third, this motif never really comes up again.
As someone who survived dating expats and locals alike, survived mind games here and there, and did toy with the idea of using penpal introduction services (in this digital age, it might be a quaint throwback for those preferring a softer pace -- but I digress) but decided against it (I felt I should work on myself rather than run overseas from problems -- your milage may vary); I can say at least that I'm glad that as weird as my romantic life got, it was never quite this weird. And while I worry that the book might be a strange product of its time (no "involuntary celebate" movement existed in the 1990s, though I'm sure there were people in that category), it would be interesting to see if anyone mines it for adaptation.
Well, my friend was right about the pasta-like tendrils, at least. 🙃
So, the background -- in the wake of 1923's Great Kanto EarthQuake, a radical woman preached overthrowing Japan's patriarchy. She is executed.
Flash forward to the 1990s, in which a trio of young women who are part of an esoteric religion called "Makahari" (presumably meant to reference "Sukyo Mahikari" ) get the bright idea of summoning the aforementioned radical's spirit. She gives them great beauty and the means to produce the aforementioned tendrils from their mouths and... er... well. Anyway, the new gift can subtly drain lifeforce, or violently crush someone into pulp. The ghost is pretty mad, so she persuades the girls to go on a date-murder spree. At some point, a fourth girl is possessed but does not participate.
Two of the girls are killed when the Makahari sect investigates, the third is mindwiped in the hopes that solves the problem, and the fourth is left with profound cravings. All this is revealed backstory, however.
The book proper starts with two threads -- the mindwiped young woman (Michiko) is undergoing therapy (which will unfortunately unlock the mental blocks placed upon her), and Atlantan adman Jack Pepper gets the idea to sign up for a cross-Pacific penpal introduction service. His bemused "good old Southern" neighbour, Hank, decides to do similar. One of the respondents is a buraku woman working in a department store and hoping to move away from such prejudices as still exist in her country. The other is the fourth possessed lady.
Most of the story is in Atlanta, but the threads will culminate in San Francisco, which the enraged ghost has decided is a den of Asian sex slavery in need of cleansing.
So, rather a lot to unpack.
Some of the stories are indeed pretty downbeat, and even given the various intersections of culture, gender and class, arguably Hank's older brother is the only deserving victim in this saga -- and ironically, a Mahakari priestess puts his spirit temporarily inside Hank, so that the younger brother will have the necessary power-up and ruthlessness to Do What Must Be Done. So be prepared to have horror tropes played with in various ways. Character investment? You could do that... but if you have a favourite, no guarantee he or she will be standing at the end.
Mostly, I remember this for the odd motif (at the time, anyway) of red leather dresses. In a curious coincidence, an ad campaign Jack is working on has a mysterious woman in red, and the spree-killing ladies also wore red leather on their Grand Night Out. Aside from a few more appearances in the last third, this motif never really comes up again.
As someone who survived dating expats and locals alike, survived mind games here and there, and did toy with the idea of using penpal introduction services (in this digital age, it might be a quaint throwback for those preferring a softer pace -- but I digress) but decided against it (I felt I should work on myself rather than run overseas from problems -- your milage may vary); I can say at least that I'm glad that as weird as my romantic life got, it was never quite this weird. And while I worry that the book might be a strange product of its time (no "involuntary celebate" movement existed in the 1990s, though I'm sure there were people in that category), it would be interesting to see if anyone mines it for adaptation.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 1, 2021
I enjoyed this read, it was very different and a little sci-fi.
Want to read
July 21, 2011Stephen King endorsed the entire Dell Abyss Horror line. Here is his blurb:
"Thank you for introducing me to the remarkable line of novels currently being issued under Dell's Abyss imprint. I have given a great many blurbs over the last twelve years or so, but this one marks two firsts: first unsolicited blurb (I called you) and the first time I have blurbed a whole line of books. In terms of quality, production, and plain old story-telling reliability (that's the bottom line, isn't it), Dell's new line is amazingly satisfying...a rare and wonderful bargain for readers. I hope to be looking into the Abyss for a long time to come."
"Thank you for introducing me to the remarkable line of novels currently being issued under Dell's Abyss imprint. I have given a great many blurbs over the last twelve years or so, but this one marks two firsts: first unsolicited blurb (I called you) and the first time I have blurbed a whole line of books. In terms of quality, production, and plain old story-telling reliability (that's the bottom line, isn't it), Dell's new line is amazingly satisfying...a rare and wonderful bargain for readers. I hope to be looking into the Abyss for a long time to come."
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews