Shadows

by Victor J. Banis

Maggie Berke, the greatest of Hollywood's great stars, retired at the height of fame and glory to devote herself to her son's burgeoning career as a child star. Then tragedy struck. Twenty years later, her niece Mari Andrews comes to visit and finds her aunt haunted by the ghost of her lost child, teetering on the brink of madness.

Genres: Gothic, Fiction

Audible Audio

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Victor J. Banis is a writer. http://www.vjbanisauthor.com/

Victor Jerome Banis (May 25, 1937 – February 22, 2019) was an American author, often associated with the first wave of west coast gay writing. For his contributions he has been called "the godfather of modern popular gay fiction

Reviews

[Em-nat · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a delight to learn that Jan Alexander was actually Victor Banis (a wildly prolific pulp author whose claim to fame is a campy series about a gay secret agent). Knowing that, the entire vibe of this novel suddenly makes perfect sense. As Jan Alexander, Banis brings a fresh, satirical angle to the gothic romantic suspense genre. Instead of a brooding English estate, we get a movie mansion in Los Angeles, and instead of a trembling waif, we get Mari.

Mari is smart, compassionate, and active in ways gothic heroines rarely get to be. She defends her aunt using her wits, pushes back against her cousin’s cruelty, and even calls out the way people moralize women’s looks. There’s a great little exchange where she and her suitor basically critique the genre’s habit of equating ugliness with villainy. There are quite a few moments like this sprinkled throughout the novel, where it feels like the author is winking directly at the reader, and it's nice to be in on the joke.

The "haunting" is handled with the same playful wit. Mari pieces together the clues with a detective’s logic, and we're left just enough ambiguity at the end to suggest that while much of the haunting is fabricated…perhaps not all of it is. Although the novel doesn’t particularly try to hide who the culprits are, the suspense comes not from who the villains *are* but from *how* they manage to pull off their scheme and when they’ll finally show their hand to Mari.

If you’ve never read a Jan Alexander novel, this is an excellent place to start. It's quick, atmospheric, and lead by a heroine worth following. My only gripe: early in the novel, Mari describes herself as if she’s watching from outside her own body. In first‑person narration, I expect more “I felt-” statements ie “I felt heat rise in my face” rather than "my cheeks pinked", but it’s a small narrative quirk that disappears once the story gains momentum.

[Adrian Griffiths · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, has this really been republished on Kindle? It's a standard gothic in which a young woman goes to visit her aunt who is a faded movie star, living in a creepy mansion that may be haunted by a ghost! The reveal of who is the "villain" is not much of a surprise but the climactic peril for our heroine was actually quite tense.

It's pretty well written, and despite the corny subject matter it worked well enough for me. If you wanted a textbook example of the genre for research purposes, or as a "taster" of a mass market gothic romance, this would fit the bill perfectly and not be a chore to read, either. I especially love the biography on the back cover that raves about Jan Alexander's experience as an author, when actually this is just a pen-name for Victor J Banis.

[Kathi Miles-avcollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this tale of old hollywood. The character are great and the mystery is fun and twisty. A little romance thrown in too.