Blackwood Farm

WHAT
A 20 hours long book, 10 hours being a boring story about a New Orleans family and their peculiar property, the Blackood Farm. The second part is a proper Vampire Chronicles tale, including new vampires, ghosts and the familiar struggle against one's inner demon, or should I say, blood thirsty spirit.


SUMMARY (spoilerish)

The interesting part
The story starts in the same style as the previous entries in the Chronicles. Rice just wants to tell the history of a new vampire, but she starts the book nonetheless in a unique fashion. We are given a prelude using Lestat as a framing device and a new member of the Talamasca.

Tarquin Blackwood, Quinn, is a newly made vampire, but he has a dangerous problem. From his birth, he is attached to a spirit named Goblin, that is a physical copy of him in every aspect. This spirit grew with him to adulthood, and they formed a very powerful and loving bond. But as Quinn grew older, he had fewer time for Goblin, who started to resent him for that. When he finally traveled to Europe, he lost his physical connection to the spirit, who vanished because of that. When Quinn returns home after a 3 year travel abroad, he cannot find Goblin again.As soon as he arrives, he transformed against his will into a vampire by a very ancient "blood hunter", as they call themselves. During his transformation Goblin appears again and tries to help him, but is unable to. Seeing Quinn now as evil, he becomes a vengeful spirit, harboring nothing but hatred for his former friend.

Quinn have sought out Lestat for help in getting rid of Goblin. He fears he is getting too strong, feeding from Quinn's blood when himself feeds from a mortal victim. He wants Lestat to end Goblin's life, at the cost of his own if needed be.

The boring part
We are told in painstaking details Quinn's life from his childhood to present times. We learn about his father, his father's father, and his father, and so on. Every employee who inhabits the Blackwood Manor is introduced, and the place itself gets a lot of back history and descriptions.

Quinn hates his mother, who never wanted nothing to do with him, and publicly and loudly scorned her son for being weird. He is raised by “pops”, his grandfather, and his aunt Queen, both of whom he loves very much, and their love is mutual. He is a weird kid as a boy, claiming to see and talk to ghosts. Nobody believes him, and he has a hard time interacting with other children. So he is home schooled, and we get to learn about the two tutors he had that he really liked. He forms a strong bond with them.

There is a particular ghost that took a fancy for him. Rebecca, who is a very attractive women. She is so beautiful that makes Quinn doubt himself as to his sexuality, having believed so far that he liked boys. She seduces Quinn and tries to use him as a means for revenge for her death. Thoughout the book, Quinn deduces that she was tortured and killed by his great grandfather.

As a teenager, queen meets Mona Mayfair, a witch who can also see Goblin. He immediately falls in love with her. They have a brief but torrid love affair. But she has a medical condition which is killing her, and she musts remain isolated for a long time for treatment.

Another plot evolving throughout the book is of the stranger who has taken residence in a remote area of the swamp inside the property of Blackwood Farm. Quinn witness this stranger dumping two bodies in the swamp, and since then, the stranger starts playing a game of cat and mouse with him. Gradually the stranger makes himself known to him, and proposes a truce of sorts.


ANALYSIS

Rice has always written great characters, it is one of her hallmarks. Eccentric immortals, a lifetime expanding for centuries, wisdom acquired, involvement in historic events. Quinn is just not that interesting. Unlike Marius or Armand's tale, this story took place in a mostly ordinary contemporary setting. There was no much sense of wonder or expectation. Tarquin was basically a normal boy, save for his somewhat unusual family and his sometimes noticeable talent for seeing spirits.

Although boring, the first part was very well written. I just wish it was much sorter. I wouldn't have kept reading this if it wasn't part of the Vampire Chronicles. I've tried to read The Mayfair Witches before, but I couldn't stand it. At least this book has only one protagonist, and we get to see the story from his point of view from the beginning.

Now I'm a bit torn. I feel like maybe I should try reading The Mayfair Witches again, because this book got very good after the first 10 hours!

Mona Mayfair becoming a vampire made not much sense as well. A common theme in the Vampire Chronicles is how much of a damnation it is to become a vampire. Quinn himself hates his maker for taking his life, and has many times considered suicide.

Merrick's death made little sense as well. We had a whole book introducing her, her connection with another important character Louis, not to mention David Talbout as well. And then, all of a sudden, she dies by suicide, throwing herself in the fire.

The main character was too petulant to be likable.

The Blackwood Farm is a very atmospheric, the descriptions of New Orleans with swamps and the Manor are beautiful.
The pace of the book is quite disjoined and slow in the first half and picks up after Rebecca's ghost appears. Unfortunately, it feels like her storyline leads nowhere and there is no pay off. Petronia and her companions are intriguing, however there could have been more scenes with and about them. Their pasts are described very briefly.
Quinn is presented as an amazing person who everybody loves for some inexplicable reason (and those who do not, are treated as horrible people with no redeeming qualities). Also, Quinn's powers as a vampire seem cheap, why does he get all the powers of ancient vampires while being just a new fledgling (especially as it took even Lestat centuries and Akasha's blood to get those same powers).
And then there is Mona. She is even worse as a character than in the Mayfair Witches Series. Once again, her character can be described just as annoying and hardly anything more. There was no need to bring her over and even worse what happened with her at the very end of the book. That was definitely not needed.
Merrick feels like such a wasted character.
Lestat is a framing device, just standing there, listening, and inexplicably fawning over Quinn. He is not acting like himself or contributing anything, and it feels like he is there only to lure in readers. This book would have fared better without him.
Any connections with the rest of the Vampire Chronicles are negligible and Blackwood Farm should have been written as a standalone.