Weekly Reader: The Eidola Project (An Eidola Project Novel) by Robert Herold; Historical Horror Brings The William James Gang Together Again-For The First Time

 

Weekly Reader: The Eidola Project (An Eidola Project Novel) by Robert Herold; Historical Horror Brings The William James Gang Together Again-For The First Time

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Earlier this year I reviewed Moonlight Becomes You by Robert Herold. It was a historical supernatural mystery in which William James, co-founder of the American Society for Psychical Research, forms The Eidola Project which investigates unusual phenomena in post-Civil War America. Accompanying him are Annabelle Douglas, James' assistant, Sarah Bradbury, a medium and former carnival performer, Dr. Edgar Gilpin, an African-American scientist and inventor, and  Nigel Pritchard, a Confederate vet with precognitive abilities. In Moonlight, the quintet investigated a series of werewolf attacks in a small Virginia town while also fighting the KKK, mistrust from locals because of their multiracial and unisex makeup, and their own suspicions, prejudices, and biases. 

The Eidola Project, the first book in the series, takes us back in time to the James Gang's first meeting and their backstories that created those suspicions and biases. They also investigate the home of Lenore Hutcheson, a reclusive heiress whose home is haunted by malevolent spirits. 

There are some very creepy moments spread throughout the book. Sarah and Nigel's visions are terrifying. Most notable is Sarah's vision of practically drowning in a pool of blood and Nigel offering her his hand (resulting in their meeting with Nigel). The ramifications are even more eerie when the vision comes true and involves a trip between worlds and a face to face with scary creatures. 

There are plenty of scary spirits as soon as the Eidolas enter the Hutcheson household, some that do physical and psychological harm to our protagonists. Sarah gets possessed by a ghost and almost tricks herself and her friends to jump off a cliff. Another apparition gets into a fight with Nigel causing him to harm himself. That's not even going into the ending when one of the characters is caught alone with the Big Bad of the story.

As with Moonlight Becomes You, The Eidola Project uses supernatural horror as a metaphor for real life conflicts in 19th century America. In Moonlight Becomes You, racial issues are upfront with the presence of the KKK, segregation, and the arguments between Nigel and Edgar. Race is important in this book, particularly since it shapes Nigel and Edgar's feelings towards each other. There is a powerful dialogue between the two where Edgar reveals his past as a former slave and Howard University graduate that shows that even though Nigel believes that he is Edgar's superior because of his skin color, Edgar is much better in terms of character and intelligence.

This time the focus is on gender. Annabelle and Sarah's backstories are elaborated upon and show the forced limitations that they have been given and why they make the choices that they have made.

Annabelle is a highly intelligent woman who is just as dedicated in the pursuit of psychical science as James. However, she can never be regarded as highly as him. In this time period, she has very few chances to become a scientist or researcher in her own right.

Not only that, but Annabelle feels the stigma of being labeled a "spinster" which resurfaces with memories, possibly visitations from her late mother. She also harbors an infatuation with the very happily married James. She suppresses her emotions as tightly as women were required to in her day but her visions become a window to her tortured soul, opening up her fears and insecurities. It's no wonder that by the second book, Annabelle acquires an addiction to laudanum.

Sarah has baggage of her own. Her spiritualist skills come about when as a child, she heard the voice of a recently murdered girl. Most people fear her or think she's crazy, particularly her own family.

She ends up kidnapped and sold to a carnival. Sarah feels like an outsider among so-called normal people so she befriends the sideshow performers. Madame Tsuritsa, a fortune teller, takes her in hand and becomes a mentor to her. 

Sarah is used by many around her for her abilities. In many ways, she is similar to the real life Fox Sisters, two sisters that professed to have medium abilities and kick started the Spiritualist Movement. They were used and abused by many around them, particularly their older sister, Leah. One of the sisters confessed to faking the communications with the dead but the Spiritualists continued into the 20th century and today. Lily Dale, NY is the home of many spiritualists, even now.

Like the Fox Sisters, Sarah was exploited by the people around her. The carnival owner, Dodgerton, collects the money while she works and after Tsuritsa's death sexually assaults her. By the time Sarah meets the Eidola Project, she feels abandoned and used by nearly everybody, not to mention she possesses abilities that frighten her and could eventually drive her insane. 

Similar to Annabelle, Sarah's powers overwhelm her and could be destructive, but they also give her a measure of power and recognition. She may not have had those without her ability to communicate with the dead. She is able to free many of the repressed feelings that Annabelle, an ordinary woman of her era, has to bury.

Similarly, Lenore is also limited by her gender and physical characteristics. She has albinism so can barely leave her house and she is restricted by her status as a wealthy woman. She is also very religious and because of this is made to feel as though she is a worthless sinner. Like Annabelle and Sarah, Lena longs to find an escape and emotional release. There are too many spoilers connected to her but let's just say, her only companions are ghosts and that can certainly drive a person into rage.

The Eidola Project is a book filled with scares but the most frightening aspects are how many people, particularly women, are constrained and held by the roles and expectations that society holds for them. It takes the power of the dead to bring the real people underneath those constraints to come forward.

 

New Book Alert: Moonlight Becomes You (An Eidola Project Novel Book 2) by Robert Herold; Supernatural Horror Covers Spiritualism and Racism in Post-Civil War USA

 New Book Alert: Moonlight Becomes You (An Eidola Project Novel Book 2) by Robert Herold; Supernatural Horror Covers Spiritualism and Racism in Post-Civil War USA

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: William James (1842-1910) is a prominent name in the worlds of psychology and parapsychology. The elder brother of author Henry James, William was a well established psychologist and philosopher, even considered the "Father of American Psychology." He was a firm believer in the pragmatic school of thought that the value of truth was dependent on the person who held it. He was also interested in the field of metaphysics and Spiritualism and was a founding member and vice-president of the American Society of Psychical Research. James observed mediums, notably Leonora Piper and evaluated 69 reports of her mediumship. He also contributed studies on mental telepathy. Even though many challenged his research, James' work was a contributing factor that paved the way for parapsychology to be treated as a legitimate science. 

Well with that real life background, William James would be a perfect candidate for a historical mystery horror series and well he is.

William James is one of the ensemble cast of The Eidola Project, Robert Herold's series in which James and his crew investigate supernatural occurrences in the Post-Civil War United States. The other project members consist of: Annabelle Douglas, James' second in command, a hypnotist with a secret addiction to laudanum, Dr. Edgar Gilpin, an African-American physicist and somewhat of a skeptic who is a frequent target of racism, Sarah Bradbury, a former sideshow/vaudeville medium who allows ghosts to speak through her and gets psychic impressions by touching those around her, and Nigel Pickford, a Confederate Civil War veteran and recovering alcoholic who has terrifying precognitive abilities but is cursed to never be believed. This is a group that not only witnesses terrifying things but are equally haunted by their own troubled past, secret vices, and their recent acquaintanceship with each other which still carries a great deal of mistrust and suspicion.

The latest case, Moonlight Becomes You, causes much of that mistrust and suspicion in house to explode while the Eidola members investigate a series of graphic murders. After African-American doctor, Joseph Curtis becomes the latest to be mauled to death by a werewolf in the segregated town of Petersburg, Virginia, Rev. Green calls on the Eidola Project to investigate these odd attacks. 

The James Gang not only has to deal with this monstrous creature who will tear its victims to pieces as soon as look at them, but they also have to deal with racists and the Ku Klux Klan, mistrust within the Petersburg community, and their own infighting before they can function as a team and take on the werewolf.

Moonlight Becomes You is a terrific book that captures both supernatural and real horror. The werewolf attacks are extremely violent and bloody. This is not a corny Hollywood cheese fest. When a person is attacked by the werewolf, they are ripped apart with blood and vital organs exposed. The attacks are not to be read unless the Reader has a strong stomach. The werewolf also lives off of pure animal instinct and will attack someone that they know and love just as easily as someone that they despise, leaving its human form to be tormented by intense guilt with only a slight comprehension of what they have done.

Along with the werewolf attacks, supernatural horror can be found within the Eidola Project members themselves and the people that they encounter. Marie, a vodou priestess is tortured by her fear of the werewolf and is institutionalized. In one of the creepiest passages, she commits self-harm by beating herself in the head while strapped in the asylum. 

Another creepy character is Monique, a witch and former lover of Nigel's. After their union ended in disaster, Monique leaves him with 

a curse as a parting gift. This curse ends up filling his thoughts and dreams so that he not only sees visions of the future but is tortured by hauntings of the people in the past that he couldn't save. Monique gets a sadistic delight out of driving her ex to alcoholism and near insanity.

Speaking of which, Nigel and Sarah's abilities are pretty terrifying as well. Throughout the book, Nigel suffers from PTSD hearing the voices of the men in his regiment accusing him of letting them die. He also has images that he can't always explain of things that will happen and even though sometimes there might be a cast change in those visions, they still happen (for example he dreams that Edgar will be attacked by the werewolf, but Edgar survives only for someone to get attacked in the same way). So Edgar's visions are inevitable and nothing can stop them.

Sarah's abilities also provide some scary moments. When she touches the late Dr. Curtis's sleeve, she sees the full attack with herself as Curtis. Another time she performs a seance and talks in the low baritone voice of an African-American man who reveals a secret known by his bemused and frightened friends. Both Sarah and Nigel are mentally scarred by their abilities that drive them to depression, anxiety, exhaustion, fear, and an inability to connect with anyone else because of what might happen to them.

These books suggest that having these supernatural abilities is not a pleasant experience and if not properly trained and understood could result in exploitation, insanity, and addiction to control them.

Unfortunately, the horror doesn't end with the otherworldly. There is enough fear found in the physical world as well, one that the Eidola Project faces firsthand. Many question the group's interracial and unisex makeup. They are also the frequent targets of the Ku Klux Klan. Edgar is met with hostility and physical and verbal attacks from the Klan. When he falls in love with Saphne, a local woman, the

Klan attacks increase especially, when he learns that she had been frequently raped by her white employer.

One of the chapters that perfectly reveals the racial tension that surrounds the novel is early in the book before Dr. Curtis is killed. Curtis tends to a white woman in labor who unfortunately dies in the process. Even though Curtis did everything that he could, she still died. Curtis knows that her husband, a long standing Klan member, would accuse him of murder even though he tried to help her. He is not surprised when he is surrounded by the white robed Klansmen.

While there technically is no correlation between the werewolf attacks and the Klan's presence, there is a possibility that the disruption of racism and hatred found in the physical world plays just as much damage as the supernatural attacks from the werewolf. That this hatred in the physical world bleeds into the disruption in the metaphysical world.

Along with the human and metaphysical world, the Eidola Project members are conflicted within themselves. James tried to act as a loving and sometimes exasperated father figure to four very dysfunctional and troubled adults.

Annabelle and Nigel both suffer from their addictions to laudanum and alcohol respectively. James is concerned that these addictions could affect their minds and abilities and tries to cut them off. However, subsequent final chapters show both reaching for the bottles in private suggesting that climbing out of their addictions will be long and painful.

Nigel and Edgar both have to deal with racial tension as well. Nigel represents the former white Confederacy, one who spent his life looking at black people as inferior. He simmers with distrust toward Edgar, a black man who represents everything he isn't: educated, eloquent, even tempered to a point. He resents having to treat Edgar like an equal. 

Likewise, Edgar represents the black men and women after the Civil War. Though Edgar was free and acquired an education, he is still looked upon with mistrust and has to jump through twice as many hoops as his white colleagues to receive even a fraction of acceptance from them. Through both men's conflicts with each other, we see the figurative ghosts of the past of slavery and war and how they still leave scars on their present psyche. Though some moments such as when the two save each other from the werewolf and when they refer to each other as a friend during an argument with locals, suggest that friendship and acceptance may be in the near future.

Moonlight Becomes You is part of a very brilliant series that covers how both the physical and metaphysical world can be haunted and healed by our actions.