Swamp Witch

Dark Forces #6

by Laurie Bridges, Paul Alexander

Book by Bridges, Laurie

Genres: Horror, Young Adult, Fiction

160 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Erica Leigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reminds me a bit of Lois Duncan’s Summer of Fear but with a voodoo grandma.

The ending was satisfyingly swampy, but the plot left a lot to be desired. I just don’t buy that a grandma would be that pissed at a new girl getting in the way of the teens she was personally shipping lol. I did enjoy some of the spooky scenes though (phantom spider! Quicksand! Not-Heather!).

The characterization of Tubelle felt stereotypical, especially with all the voodoo and black magic. It’s definitely a product of its time but the overall concept is solid.

[Heather G · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books as a teen! I recently found and purchased a copy of this for my own teenager, and couldn't put it down myself as an adult. This was probably more nostalgic for me, rather than actual good reading material...so this is likely not impartial on my part.

It's too bad they are not reprinting more of the supernatural-style books of the 80's, as this series might find a new generation of readers.

[Meen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read all of the books in this teen horror series over and over in junior high and high school. I'm sure if I read them now I would find them hideous (in the bad way), but because I loved them so much then, I'm giving them all five stars!

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Swamp Witch opens on a father and daughter in mid-argument. The father is readying for a business trip and the daughter desperately argues against being sent off to her aged aunt for the duration.

Predictably Linda, the daughter, wins and instead of being shipped off to her aunt she instead intends to spend the time with her friend Heather and her family.

Almost instantly Linda finds herself besieged by nightmares and hallucinations which grow in intencity even as she grows closer to Heather and her childhood friend Ron. It seems that the families housemaid, Tubelle, has had her heart set on Heather and Ron becomeing more than just friends; and Linda has found herself the victim of a voodoo priestess with more than a little understanding of the dark arts.

Laurie Bridges and Paul Alexander's Swamp Witch was the sixth book in the mid eighties horror series Dark Forces, which was aimed at a teen audience and though it drastically varied in quality throughout its short run it was a series that had the fourteen year old me hooked.

Swamp Witch was not one I read at the time, so I did my best to chennel the fourteen year old Alan to appeaciate it the best I could and though it didn't hit the heights of some in the series it was far better than others. Mainly Swamp Witch was a thinly disguised romance that chronicled the growing relationship between Linda and Ron, but this isn't to day the horror aspects arn't interesting if somewhat sparce. It's main issue is that in spite of the voodoo theme none of the halucinations or nightmares seems to link together in any satisfying way; we have a mysterious fetishistic dolls and myserious monsters (who are never seen), spiders, snakes and storms but I couldn't help but think either Tubelle, or perhaps the authors, lacked the imagination necessary to really drive Linda over sanity's edge.

I feel I would have done a better job; as least thats what the girlfriend says.

That all said theres some very good characterization to be seen in the book. Its shallow characerization to be sure, but quite well concieved. Tubelle exists within an always condescending atmosphere. Heather and her family see her as a harmless domesticated pet rather than a woman with all the deep complexity that she is capable; perhaps this is symtomatic of a family with deep rooted racism or perhaps the family is truly so shallow they wouldn't see it in anyone. To make matters worse Tubelle seems unaware of all this and instead of becoming resentful of it she seems rather to hold them all in high esteem.

Theres something extremely sad about this setup, as if the family have stepped out of a story from the old south and I always felt that the family could turn on Tubelle at any moment. Linda on the other hand sees Tubelle as an instantly intimidating character and strangely she seems the only one who truly sees Tubelle as the formidable person she turns out to be.

Ironically of course Tubelle grows to hate the only person who has any real respect for her; but isn't that often the case?

Instead of presenting us with clearcut good and evil the story unfolds as a series of misunderstandings and as such my sympathies wavered back and forth between the characters. As Tubelle slowly unwinds into clear cut madness its hard not to sympathise with her plight because, after all, everything she does she does out of love of a child she had raised form a baby. In this Swamp Witch becomes something of a tragedy which only - just - manages to squeak into the horror category because of the introduction of voodoo.

Ultimately in spite of the books symplicity and the bait-and-switch of it being more romance than horror I found the book to be a page turner and I really had no idea how the book would eventually end. Yeah, I knew that Linda and Ron would walk off hand-in-hand, and I supected Tubelle would have to be dealt with permenantly; but I always felt the possiblility of redemption was there for her.

Swamp Witch is a book that was both better and worse than I expected it to be and its one that I thought could've a lot better if it had been given more space to manuevure around in, but given the 160 pages or so it took up and the obvious limitation of being an 80'd teen novel it couldn't quite manage it. I really felt some sorrow for this, as odd as this might sound, because the setup is probably the most interestin thing about the book and I could easily have seen it exploring racism and the burdens of slavery that I thought Tubelle laboured under. Theres an undercurrent of this already and I wondered whether this was intentional and whether the authors originally had something grander planned.

[♥ Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Totally creeped me out as a kid.

[Ilyana Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this when I was 14. Still think about it! Loved Dark Forces books!

[Mark Baumgart · Rating 2 out of 5]

“She was writhering and twisting on the floor, flecks of foamy white spittle on her lips . . .”

First of all, get over it, the great scene by the uncredited artist on the cover of the Bantam edition isn’t in the book. The blond even has brown eyes, where the girl in the book is blue-eyed. Still, it is well rendered, and I liked it.

In the young adult horror novel Swamp Witch by Laurie Bridges & Paul Alexander, Linda Jackson and Heather Clark are the best of friends, so when Linda’s father goes on an extended trip to Africa, Linda gets to spend her last year of high school with Heather’s family until her father gets back to the States.

At first, things at the Clark household are ok, but soon the Clark’s housekeeper, Tubelle, gets it into her head, that Linda is trying to take Heather’s “boyfriend” Ron away from Heather, even though Heather has to keep making it clear to Tubelle that there is nothing romantic between her and Ron. They are just friends, and nothing more. The longer that Linda stays with the Clark’s the more hostile and pathologic Tubelle gets. This ends up with Tubelle starting to cast voodoo spells against Linda, and to withhold Linda’s mail from her from her father. As all is happening, Linda is just clueless as to why Tubelle hates her so much, and with the Clarks being equally clueless, and not noticing Tubelle’s growing attitude. This all causes Linda to start having weird dreams, and with her having nobody to talk to about these.

Adding to Tubelle’s hatred is when Heather gets it into her head to jump a horse that she isn’t ready to ride, and has a serious accident. Heather chips her spine and breaks bones, and Tubelle is convinced that Linda did this on purpose to get Ron to take Linda to the upcoming Christmas school gala instead of Heather.

That, and Ron and Linda’s budding romance helps send Tubelle right over the edge, and Tubelle’s spellcasting starts becoming deadly.

When you read this novel, you’ll find that it has voodoo, romance, suspense, horses, spellcasting, BFFs, a damsel in distress; so how could you not love this novel?

Easily, because, well, ultimately, this is your bog-standard voodoo horror novel; it’s just that it is watered down for the juvenile reader, although it does have some good scenes. Like when Ron and Linda get lost in a nearby swamp.

A good example of the ordinariness of the novel is just how mediocre are the novel’s characters. There is Linda, who is your typical blond and dewy eyed innocent; Ben, Tubelle’s orphaned jock grandson, a character that is wasted until the novel’s ending; Ron, the perfunctory boyfriend; and worst of all, Tubelle, the black housekeeper who’s a whiz at everything, including voodoo spellcasting, plus who talks in a pigeon Southern “black speak drawl”, who believes that Heather is more her child than the Clark’s, who seems to care more her white Heather instead of her black grandson. The rest are just cardboard set pieces to be moved around as the authors see fit. There is zero character development.

In many ways, I get the feeling that this is a novella meant for Southern middle-class white girls. Both the Clarks and the Jacksons seem to be pretty well off, with the Clarks having enough money to have a live-in housekeeper, and having a horse. Tubelle is a black woman who oversees the household, the child raising, and all of the cooking. All the teenagers play, but, except for Ben, none work, and all parents, except for the Clarks, seem to be absent.

All-in-all, Swamp Witch is a not bad, but not good, read. Beefing up the cliched characters, and developing the suspense more would have made this a better read.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

You have to remember, this came out in '83. So for what it was when it came out, it's decent. I won't knock it for that. The only thing that I thought for sure we would get is an explanation.....but no. So if you're into cheesy 80's horror flicks (all of them) then pick it up if you ever find it somewhere.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, short YA horror novel from the 80s.

[Nattie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Where oh where do I begin? Let me close my eyes and relax a little because this book got on my stinking nerves so bad! There was no mystery, you knew what was going on right from page five.

What you have is an asinine book about a girl named Linda who goes to live with her best friend Heather for nearly a year. Linda's father had to go to South Africa. Heather's family has an elderly housekeeper named Tubelle. Tubelle's pitiful life revolves around Heather. She does everything for the girl, and wants to do more if she can. She is literally obsessed with Heather.

Tubelle suddenly starts to dislike Linda because she gets it in her head that Linda is out to ruin Heather's life and steal her man, a boy that Heather has stated many times that she is not interested in romantically. Tubelle does not see it that way, she thinks Ron and Heather are destined to have a family and hopes that she will get to care for their babies.

Tubelle sets out to torture a teenage girl who has done nothing.

If I could have bopped Tubelle upside the head with something hard, I likely would have. The woman was ridiculous, but Heather must be protected, and you just have to deal with that because Tubelle's baby is the only thing that matters in the world. As Tubelle said, "Mah baby must be watched over, and I is going to do for her." I would be laughing if this book was not the height of foolishness.

I didn't much care for Heather's parents in regards to Tubelle. I did not like the way they treated her. They were nice and polite, and she'd been with them for a while and you could see that they did like her, but there was just some vibe that nagged at me. I got sick of them sending her in the kitchen to whip up some of her fried chicken and she-crab soup.

I didn't much care for the way anybody treated Tubelle. Heather had the habit of speaking to the elderly woman as if she were the adult and Tubelle was the child, and Ron once referred to the woman as the old girl. I let Heather off the hook because even though I didn't like it, Tubelle was her servant, and it usually works that way even if it's wrong.

Crazy Tubelle and her sick obsession with her baby was more than enough to make me turn a blind eye to any improper treatment, she deserved to be locked away somewhere, regardless of how good her fried chicken was.

[Terri LH · Rating 1 out of 5]

I loved the Dark Forces books when I was a 10-11 year old. I never read the entire series as a kid, but the ones I did read (and read again as an adult) I thought were really fun. I decided to read this one thinking I may have missed out. Now, I am keeping in mind that this is an 80's teen horror series, so it's not like I'd expect it to be a literary masterpiece, but this book was stupid even for was it was... Besides the ridiculous plot and unbelievable characters, it's mostly about a dreamy boy named Ron with a red Mustang and the color of Linda's dress. *Yawn* This is a ditzy teen romance. Also, the hallucinated spider that makes it's debut is referred to as a huge "insect". (Spiders aren't insects) Perhaps I'm being a snob. I'd say this is one of the weaker ones in the series. Read "the Bargain" or "Eyes of the Tarot" instead. They are much better.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to read the Dark Forces books as a child, but my Mom thought the winged imp on the cover meant it was Satanic. Reading one now, 30 years later, I can tell her she needn't have worried. :)

This is a story of the WASPy-est teenagers who ever lived who run afoul of their black maid, who is of course also a voodoo priestess. Thrill to bad dreams and shredded dresses! The cover of the book never happens. There may be a monster but it is never seen and doesn't do anything.

This is a perfectly fine teen romance novel disguised as a horror story. I know it isn't meant for me, but even as a 10 year old I would have felt betrayed by the bait-and-switch. Maybe my Mom was right after all, but for the wrong reasons.

[Josh Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember owning this back in the late 80s. According to the inside jacket the third printing was October 1987, which would've made me 12 at the time. A perfect age for this sort of horror story, which is quite terrifying in places. Simply written, but solid characterization and pace throughout. Got me thinking: they should do a movie or TV series based on these books. Like "Tales from the Darkside," but for the YA set.

[Adrian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nowhere on the cover does it say it's a kids book. Also, not enough swamp, or voodoo.