“The first time Jude Allman died, he was eight years old.”

This is the first line of Waking Lazarus, a story about a troubled man who becomes an unwilling celebrity after he dies three times over the course of his life. Jude Allman doesn’t know how or why he survived and goes to great lengths to protect himself from the media after he moves to Red Lodge, Montana. Under the assumed name of Ron Gress, Jude works for the local elementary school as a janitor.

He leads a very solitary, paranoia-ridden life until a strange woman named Kristina shows up on his doorstep. Naturally, he thinks she’s a reporter and tries to shoo her away. She convinces him that she is a dying woman looking for answers to the Other Side. In the meantime, children have started disappearing from neighboring towns.

Jude is aware of this and is afraid for his five year-old son, Nathan. He begins experiencing premonitions, first with a suicidal waitress and then with a man he met after a fatal pedestrian accident. When Jude bumps into this man (named Kenneth Sohler) in the men’s bathroom of the local restaurant, he experiences a strong vision that Sohler has someone trapped inside his house against their will. This vision spurns him to Sohler’s house and under the watchful eye of the already paranoid police department.

Suddenly everyone wants to know who Ron Gress really is, including his estranged girlfriend. The police are certain that he is the perpetrator of the child abductions until Nathan is kidnapped with his best friend and his best friend’s mother. Jude is let off the hook, but now he must face his past as he seeks the whereabouts of his son and friend.

T.L. Hines did a great job of weaving this paranormal thriller together. Just when you think you’ve identified the abductor, he throws in another twist to keep you guessing. Highly recommended.

This is a two-part review, as I read both the book and watched the movie this week. I’ll start off with the book. The story is narrated by Robert Neville, who starts off by telling us how he avoids the vampires that try to break into his house every night. As the story unfolds, we learn more about how this situation came about and how he is the only survivor of this cataclysmic event. What I found interesting was how Neville became immune to the vampirus germ.

Matheson wrote this book so well that I almost felt as though I was there with Neville as he drinks himself into a stupor each day in order to deal with the pain of his losses and the utter isolation he feels because he is the only human being left alive on the planet. Although there are several horrific moments in the story, I felt that I Am Legend was more poignant and literary. The reader is taken on a tour of this man’s psyche as he tries to understand what happened and if he can “cure” the vampires.

Because I Am Legend is a novella, the publisher decided to tack on several short stories, which I thought were completely unrelated to the main theme of the book. For instance, there was a short story about a woman who was attacked by a rare “hunter” doll. It didn’t matter to me that these stories were well-written; I was expecting a continuation of the main story, or, at the very least, a vampire theme. I returned the book to my bookcase, content that I had read what I had set out to read. Despite that quibble, I highly recommend this book because it not only makes you feel, but it makes you think.

The Movie

Hollywood almost always hacks up the author’s stories to suit their audience. That’s a given. What they did with I Am Legend was modernize it. The story begins with an interview with a doctor who discovers the cure for cancer in 2012. This “cure” proves deadly to the human race. Robert Neville relives the night he lost his family as he washes his dog, when his stop watch goes off to alert him to board up his house, etc. In the book, he was a plant worker who teaches himself how to use a microscope and to distinguish the characteristics of germs and viruses. In the movie, he is a military colonel who is also a scientist. During the three years of the aftermath, he tries to develop a cure for this condition so he can revive the human race from near extinction.

Will Smith performed excellently in his role as Robert Neville. One particular scene that almost made me cry was when he was standing in a movie store, trying to hold a conversation with mannequins. This scene accomplished the sense of total isolation very well. There’s plenty of action in this movie, as Neville is constantly having to watch out for the rabid vampires, who reminded me of the caricature of Pink Floyd’s The Wall–huge, gaping mouths with beady little eyes. To say any more would risk spoiling the movie. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, go see it.

Paranormal romance, especially involving vampires, have broken sales records over the past twenty years, according to publishing sources. Vampires have always been popular among horror readers. Anne Rice made a name for herself with her vampire stories back in the 80s and 90s. After 9/11, vampire romance boomed. Author and psychiatrist, Lynda Hilburn has come up with some theories after talking with her clients.

“There are several theories about the increase in sales of vampire romance,” Hilburn said. “A recent view is that women feel less safe and secure in the world, and the previous symbols of strong, semi-dangerous males — our law enforcement and military warriors — were replaced by supernatural beings. Indestructible supernatural beings. Unlike the undead, real flesh-and-blood men can be killed in war or through terrorist acts. Facing a frightening daily “reality” made escaping into magical worlds, filled with all-powerful, appealing immortals, a healthy coping mechanism.”

Hilburn also reports that women in therapy are disappointed with the men in their lives. The idea of a drop-dead gorgeous guy lurking outside their windows is much more appealing than watching their husbands or boyfriends sitting in front of the television. She has written a book, called The Vampire Shrink, which involves the main character becoming attracted to an 800 year-old vampire as well as the FBI profiler.

Source: YourHub.com Boulder

I remember catching sight of The Two Dead Girls book in the grocery store. I bought the book, took it home and began to enjoy what would be my first experience reading serial novels. Paul Edgecomb runs the death row section of the Cold Mountain Penitentiary in the middle of the Depression. We are first drawn into Edgecomb’s life before the giant John Coffey walks onto The Mile.

Edgecomb is dealing with a particularly nasty bladder infection. His colleague’s friend is dying of a brain tumor. And if that wasn’t enough, he has to deal with a power-hungry prison guard who likes to blackmail him with his “connections” with the governor. This guard escorts John Coffey into the Death Row cell block, yelling, “Dead man walking! This is a dead man walking!”

Coffey shuffles into his cell, looking scared and bewildered. He cries a lot. The guards, with the exception of Percy the power-hungry, feel sorry for him. Then, one day, Coffey calls Edgecomb up to his cell. With great reluctance, Edgecomb complies. Coffey grabs the guard by the groin and proceeds to rid him of his bladder infection.

Mystified, Edgecomb sets out to find out exactly how Coffey wound up on Death Row. He learns that the case isn’t as cut and dried as everyone thinks. He also learns that Coffey’s gift can do great things (like bringing a dead mouse back to life), but with a price.

Frank Darabont did an excellent job of recreating the story almost precisely as it is written, and the cast couldn’t have been any better than it was. This isn’t a normal Hollywood movie, but a leisurely 3-hour story and a very good one. I didn’t know about the alternate ending when The Green Mile was reproduced as a full-length novel. After watching this movie, I found that I wanted more. So, I may just go out and buy that novel. I highly recommend the movie. Just make sure you can set aside a full three hours to watch it.