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Traces
After a miraculous recovery, Brian Clifford seems to have taken on a new, disturbing personality and other patients in the hospital begin mysteriously dying
- GenresHorror
333 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 28, 2021
If you ever read a Patricia Wallace novel, you know what to expect. If you haven't, imagine an 80s medical horror thriller, full of hot-to-trot blonde nurses having affairs with married doctors who drive Jaguars, a strong female physician staving off the apparently acceptable workplace harassment by sleazy guys in pornstash, multiple side characters of overworked hospital staff who seem to always be on duty and incessantly drinking break room coffee from styrofoam cups, and an inexplicable supernatural threat arising from one very pissed off patient of a West Coast hospital with multiple unused wings and rooms.
As a physician, I always get a kick out of Wallace's stories, which bring back so vividly the days of indentured servitude of young residents and doctors working late night shifts in the ICU and emergency rooms. The author clearly had medical training, as she captures not only the medical jargon and science very accurately, but the various ways hospital staff tend to interact and discharge tension. If you are not a healthcare worker, you might find yourself as bewildered as an intern on their first clinical rotation, taking orders from the chief resident who hurriedly hurls barely intelligible instructions from across the hall in fluent acronym-speak.
This can get annoying for the reader, and I think Wallace tries too hard to inject "realism" into her stories by showing off her medical knowledge. But this is largely forgiveable compared to the amount of fluff and padding that drags out a relatively simple story. There just didn't seem to be enough going on to justify the length of this novel. In fact, it felt longer to me than it really was. That's because for the most part, the story was quite boring.
First of all, the villain is a serial rapist who resurrects in the body of a comatose boy. This makes for a very uninteresting and unappealing bad guy. He spends most of his time lying in bed. And when he does evil things, there is no real motivation other than, well, he is evil. There is no complexity to the character, no humor, no charisma. The same can be said for the protagonist who is largely two-dimensional. So there was no point in the story where you were happy a certain character was back on the scene.
The other flaw concerns the e-book. I mentioned the same problem in my review for Wallace's "The Children's Ward." There are no visual cues between transitions. If we are reading about two staff having sex in the whirlpool bath down in physical therapy, the next sentence might be about a mother knitting a sweater at her son's bedside. There is no spacing, no asterisks, no bold words, nothing to indicate we have moved on. This can get disorienting.
But before you think that I would not recommend this book, I must say that there is always something charming about a Wallace novel. There is an innocent energy that resonates on every page that comes from a young author enjoying the hell out of her work. Unlike many modern stories who try so hard to stun their audience with "transgressive" violence and sexual depravity, or to depress us with "serious" depictions of grief and trauma, "Traces" seeks to only bring entertainment. This is a perfect beach or pool side read for the summer, full of genuine 80s pathos for nostalgia-seekers, and enough thrills for most dopamine-fiends.
And the novel is not entirely devoid of intelligent themes. I was particularly interested in the "resurrection" of the boy from brain-death and the impact this had on his mother and on the hospital staff. This brought out interesting discussion about the meaning of clinical death and the decision to not resuscitate vs. heroic measures. I also enjoyed the double-entendre of the title "Traces," which you will appreciate if you read this book.
So fans of classic paperback horrors and thrillers from this era will likely enjoy this title, but it lacks the grit and imagination to make it stand out from other genre novels both vintage and new.
As a physician, I always get a kick out of Wallace's stories, which bring back so vividly the days of indentured servitude of young residents and doctors working late night shifts in the ICU and emergency rooms. The author clearly had medical training, as she captures not only the medical jargon and science very accurately, but the various ways hospital staff tend to interact and discharge tension. If you are not a healthcare worker, you might find yourself as bewildered as an intern on their first clinical rotation, taking orders from the chief resident who hurriedly hurls barely intelligible instructions from across the hall in fluent acronym-speak.
This can get annoying for the reader, and I think Wallace tries too hard to inject "realism" into her stories by showing off her medical knowledge. But this is largely forgiveable compared to the amount of fluff and padding that drags out a relatively simple story. There just didn't seem to be enough going on to justify the length of this novel. In fact, it felt longer to me than it really was. That's because for the most part, the story was quite boring.
First of all, the villain is a serial rapist who resurrects in the body of a comatose boy. This makes for a very uninteresting and unappealing bad guy. He spends most of his time lying in bed. And when he does evil things, there is no real motivation other than, well, he is evil. There is no complexity to the character, no humor, no charisma. The same can be said for the protagonist who is largely two-dimensional. So there was no point in the story where you were happy a certain character was back on the scene.
The other flaw concerns the e-book. I mentioned the same problem in my review for Wallace's "The Children's Ward." There are no visual cues between transitions. If we are reading about two staff having sex in the whirlpool bath down in physical therapy, the next sentence might be about a mother knitting a sweater at her son's bedside. There is no spacing, no asterisks, no bold words, nothing to indicate we have moved on. This can get disorienting.
But before you think that I would not recommend this book, I must say that there is always something charming about a Wallace novel. There is an innocent energy that resonates on every page that comes from a young author enjoying the hell out of her work. Unlike many modern stories who try so hard to stun their audience with "transgressive" violence and sexual depravity, or to depress us with "serious" depictions of grief and trauma, "Traces" seeks to only bring entertainment. This is a perfect beach or pool side read for the summer, full of genuine 80s pathos for nostalgia-seekers, and enough thrills for most dopamine-fiends.
And the novel is not entirely devoid of intelligent themes. I was particularly interested in the "resurrection" of the boy from brain-death and the impact this had on his mother and on the hospital staff. This brought out interesting discussion about the meaning of clinical death and the decision to not resuscitate vs. heroic measures. I also enjoyed the double-entendre of the title "Traces," which you will appreciate if you read this book.
So fans of classic paperback horrors and thrillers from this era will likely enjoy this title, but it lacks the grit and imagination to make it stand out from other genre novels both vintage and new.
January 1, 2024
I read a few of Wallace's 'hospital horrors' back in the day, but Traces did not rock my boat by any means. The actual story/plot here is pretty thin, but severely padded out with all kinds of romance, sex, and affairs of the heart; no surprise that all the books Zebra decided to blurb on the front and back ends of this were all romances. Still, if you want to cheesy hospital horror from the 80s, you could do worse (like Robin Cook); at least Wallace knows how to write!
Traces largely chronicles the events at 'Beachside Hospital', somewhere in L.A. It does start off rather strong and a little spooky, but quickly becomes mired in various love affairs and such. Were doctors and nurses really going at it that much in the 80s? Clandestine sex in the morgue? Jeez! Anyway, a brief prologue features a guy smashing his car up and being taken to the hospital, where he shortly expires due to his injuries. Or does he? The basic plot (and this is a bit spoilery) concerns how the dying motorist's 'life force' for lack of better words leaves his body, but goes off looking for a new host.
Turns out the driver is a nasty serial rapist/murderer. Was it his evil that allowed his 'essence' to survive? Wallace does not really probe this here so you just have to run with it. The 'host' he finds is the braindead body of a young guy brought in a few days prior; massive hemorrhage to the brain and now he is 'flat lined'. One day he just sits up. Seems like a miracle! Yet, he has no memory of his supposed life as Brian and his mother knows something happened to him; he is even physically changing! The rapist/murderer explores his new powers and starts creating havoc at the hospital and people are dying in strange ways. His doctor, the main protagonist, suspects something is wrong, but can she prove anything?
This sounds pretty exciting and it really could have been, but for every advancement of the plot you have to wade through a pile of romance and sleazy sex (did I already mention the morgue?). If you are into romance, you might get more out of this than I did. As a horror novel, it could have been much better with more focus and some more foo! 2 weak stars.
Traces largely chronicles the events at 'Beachside Hospital', somewhere in L.A. It does start off rather strong and a little spooky, but quickly becomes mired in various love affairs and such. Were doctors and nurses really going at it that much in the 80s? Clandestine sex in the morgue? Jeez! Anyway, a brief prologue features a guy smashing his car up and being taken to the hospital, where he shortly expires due to his injuries. Or does he? The basic plot (and this is a bit spoilery) concerns how the dying motorist's 'life force' for lack of better words leaves his body, but goes off looking for a new host.
Turns out the driver is a nasty serial rapist/murderer. Was it his evil that allowed his 'essence' to survive? Wallace does not really probe this here so you just have to run with it. The 'host' he finds is the braindead body of a young guy brought in a few days prior; massive hemorrhage to the brain and now he is 'flat lined'. One day he just sits up. Seems like a miracle! Yet, he has no memory of his supposed life as Brian and his mother knows something happened to him; he is even physically changing! The rapist/murderer explores his new powers and starts creating havoc at the hospital and people are dying in strange ways. His doctor, the main protagonist, suspects something is wrong, but can she prove anything?
This sounds pretty exciting and it really could have been, but for every advancement of the plot you have to wade through a pile of romance and sleazy sex (did I already mention the morgue?). If you are into romance, you might get more out of this than I did. As a horror novel, it could have been much better with more focus and some more foo! 2 weak stars.
December 13, 2024
A young man, healthy suddenly, a massive brain hemorrhage. On deaths door he is now suddenly sitting up in bed with an emotionless look on his face. This man seemingly has control over electricity and sends 40000 watts blasted into a patient's chest from a defibrillator. He has now killed. He sends electricity destroying a ladies central nervous system. Sends an EEG operator flying across a room. This man was a sick murdering rapist who is able to leave his body and stab a nurse repeatedly, blood dripping from the ceiling.
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