Maplecroft

"She picked up the axe and flipped it expertly, feeling for the familiar move and sway of its weight with more grace and better precision than the the most experienced of lumberjacks. It was almost lovely, the way she turned it between her hands--almost divine, how the light sparked off it and bounded back into the sky."

Yes, this is a novel about Lizzie Borden. Cherie Priest has scored points for originality by combining the real-life axe murderess (alleged, to be technical) with the style of H.P. Lovecraft, who wrote about the Cthulu Mythos--beings from deep beneath the sea. It kind of works.

Maplecroft, so named for the mansion that the Borden sisters moved into after Lizzie was acquitted and they inherited their father's money, implies, then spells out, that Lizzie killed her parents (actually a father and step-mother) because they were turning into some kind of fish-like beings. The sisters have researched these creatures, occasionally having to kill them (the axe works best) and then parboiling them in a cooker in the basement.

Emma, Lizzie's older sister, has written articles on marine life under a pseudonym, and corresponded with a Dr. Zellicoffer of Miskatonic University (an institution well known to readers of Lovecraft). She has also sent him a sample, one that has turned him into one of "them," and he has come to look for her in Fall River, leaving a trail of dead behind him.

This is the set up, and I would have never thought Lizzie Borden could have been turned into an avenging heroine. Priest writes in the florid, ornate style of Lovecraft, redolent with odors; "The sample smelled like pickled death. It stank of rot and fire, as of something imperfectly fermented. The fumes were thick in my nostrils, and I bit my tongue fiercely to keep myself from sneezing. Almost as if the contents emitted some noxious, dizzying gas, my vision became light and my concentration waned."

Lovecraft was interested not only in tentacled gods from the depths, but in madness, and Priest is, too. She has several characters narrate, but the most interesting is Dr. Seabury, who comes to learn of the horrors the Borden sisters know and he pays for it, as his mind starts to slip.

I think most have come to agree that Lizzie Borden did kill her parents, if only because it couldn't have been anyone else, but there are those who maintain her innocence. I have no idea if Priest does, but it seems likely, as she is given a sympathetic portrait. "From a certain slant, it would appear that my sister and I are the witches we're accused of being. Oh, I don't know. Perhaps the whispers have merit. What else would you call it but witchcraft--these experiments my sister undertakes in the basement laboratory, and around the walls and windows of this home? She's turning it into a fortress of superstition, but if you ask her, she'll argue that it's all science...of a kind."

I don't know how big the Venn diagram is for those interested in both Lovecraft and Lizzie Borden, but I am, and I rather enjoyed this book, though I suspect true devotees of both may have issues.