Last Rites

by Jorge Saralegui

A crumbling but charming old hotel in San Francisco hides an ancient legacy of horror and evil beneath its facade.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Vampires

279 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1985

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite the effective slow burn, revolving around a rundown, formerly glamorous hotel in the seedy (during the 80s at least) Tenderloin District in San Francisco, where long-term residents are dropping like flies. But then why are they still glimpsed -- after they'd supposedly died -- roaming the alleys nearby, disheveled and homeless looking? And why are there dead rats in the halls, seemingly drained of blood? A grade school teacher who lives there tries to get to the bottom of it, especially now as one of his favorite students seems to be slowly changing into...something else. How long has this been going on for? Time to team up with the local priest who, of course, happens to be knowledgeable on such things.

I read this over a year ago and while I enjoyed it well enough at the time, it's stayed with me much more than I thought it would, so I thought I'd write a little something here since there's next to nothing online about it. I've never been especially keen on vampire novels (which isn't really a spoiler, considering the cover art), but this one was rather well done, slowly building in creepiness, and with a number of chilling scenes and an overall vibe that reminded me a bit of Ray Garton's excellent Live Girls, only this came first. And Last Rites isn't nearly as splattery, relying much more on an increasingly unnerving atmosphere and subtle chills that slowly ramp up in intensity as opposed to gore. It's made all the more potent thanks to the many well-drawn characters. I only wish that there was a bit more mystery as far as the nature of the evil is concerned, but of course that wouldn't be possible without an entirely different cover.

Still, I recommend it to fans of 80s horror. It's dark and disturbing, with some nice twists I didn't see coming. Too bad Jorge Saralegui only wrote a few novels, as this one has certainly piqued my interest in his work. Looks like he ended up becoming a big-shot Hollywood producer.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

In its own way, this is a hauntingly beautiful book, albeit quite a sad one. Set in the seedy Tenderloin in San Francisco (yes, it was seedy when this was published in 1985), it tells the tale of a vampire queen, active at the turn on the century, but now old and decrepit. Matt, a scholar/teacher fleeing from his broken marriage (broke due to his sleeping with his students) comes to town due to a teaching gig at an elementary school. Shortly after he arrives, he 'saves' a woman and her daughter from an old derelict on the street and it turns out the daughter, Amanda, will be one of his students (she is about 10). The woman, Jessie, is married to a film critic who gets additional income from the real estate market.

Anyway, Matt takes a room in a rather seedy flophouse that used to be a fairly grand hotel. The owner, Delores, is ancient, confined to a wheelchair, and the fellow borders are the dregs of society; drunks, crazies, etc. Turns out Jessie's husband is buying the block with the hotel and there is little Delores can do about it. She launches a scheme that will pull all the main characters together...

From the cover, you know this will be a vampire novel, but this is really an outlier in the genre. Saralegui creates as very atmospheric background to give life to the story, along with some very troubled characters. There are no saints here, only people broken by life in various ways, and further broken when Dolores' scheme starts to hatch. Punctuated by a deeply sad ending, this is like 10 miles of bad road! 3.5 stars, rounding up for the end.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slow burn vampire novel that unfortunately fizzled out for me in the third act. I'm not usually a fan of the vampire genre but this one was at least well-written, especially for an 80's horror novel, though the derelict vampires seemed to act more like zombies at times. And at some points it was really hard to tell if the action was really happening or was part of a character's dream/fantasy/hallucination.

I caught a lot of references that I'm not sure were intentional or coincidence - the lawyer's last name is Varney; is that an ode to the first acknowledged vampire story, Varney the Vampire? Another character's name is "Judith Harper", which recalls "Jonathan Harker" from Dracula. The epilogue is titled "Waiting For The Sun" and earlier in the novel, a character was listening to a Doors record. Coincidence? (I'm also dying to know if Mr. Slater and his parrot is an obscure reference to the Bonzo Dog Band song of the same name, but that would be a very deep cut if true.) There's also a Warren Zevon song quoted, which always gets a thumbs up from me.

Overall 3/5. I'd been hoping for more of the child vampire angle because I found that far more interesting than wino vampires.

[Steve Matthewman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable vampire novel