Book Review: The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

The terror came to the United State in an airplane. It landed in New York. It erupted from the World Trade Center. Or, more accurately, from the tunnels beneath the WTC site. This isn’t the real-life terror that spawned more than one war, but the terror of The Strain. A collaboration between filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and author Chuck Hogan, this terror isn’t jihadi extremism, but a vampire plague. 

These aren’t the sexy kind of vampires that sparkle and seduce, though there is something sexual (in a grotesque way) about their pulsing white blood. These are a cross between zombies and giant viral mosquitoes (sans flying), who behave like a pack of rats. I would not want to kiss one.

In this vampire rendering, a plane lands in New York. Everyone on board is dead. For a little while. Unfortunately, they all get up and go home and eat their families and their neighbors. Combining fantasy myth and forensic mystery, this book imagines how we might react to an invasion of vampires.

The story has one foot in the Old World and one in the New. Some common vampire tropes pop up. The vamps can’t cross moving water without an assist, and the Master is closely associated with a large wooden box full of dirt. The monsters aren’t fond of light (especially UVC) or silver, and, of course, they drink blood. Garlic and Holy Water, though, are out. Abraham Setrakian, a Holocaust survivor, disgraced university professor, and pawn broker is an obvious van Helsing. Abraham’s old world roots, at the table with his Bubbeh and her moralizing/terrifying fairy tale, juxtapose with the flashing lights of the air traffic control tower.

The airplane from Germany injects the vampirism squarely into the jugular of the United States. The writers pull the story into the 21st century New World with a scientific explanation for vampirism. The condition is caused by a blood parasite that takes over a host body, and can be transmitted without a bite if the parasite can wiggle relentlessly into a new host—or into the dirt to await the arrival of a suitable host. The hero is a hot shot doctor at the Centers for Disease control, Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, called Eph for most of the story. He is rebuilding a broken personal life, damaged by alcoholism and workaholism. He comes complete with a smart kid, sympathetic ex-wife and her loser boyfriend. Except for the -isms, Eph is portrayed as a morally sound do-gooder out to protect people and do the right thing. He is an attractive not-hero, smart, full of real emotion, willing to be a good doctor, but reluctant to face a new role as warrior/killer. (Note: I imagined him more like Grant Imahara of Mythbusters than the actor who portrays him in the book trailers. Yes, that is a good thing.)

My scary-book-(and movie)-reviewing credibility died when I became a parent. Sometime around childbirth I lost the ability to stomach any pretend gore. I came to this book in the interest of adventure after seeing a few positive references to it online and seeing a totally creepy book trailer. (Incidentally, this was also the first time I’d heard of a book trailer. Some kind of weird hybrid of commercial and music video.) I was looking for a good scare in this book.

In that sense, the book was successful. I was thoroughly creeped out to the point that I skipped my 5:30 a.m. run one day, and for a couple of days after that, ran tense, spooking at ever twitchy shadow and leaf rustle. I imagined a nasty zombie-like vamp lurking around every corner, and ran a little faster.

The dead plane on the tarmac of a major metropolitan airport is a great opening conceit. It is creepy and suspenseful all by itself, and the tension builds as the bureaucracy and confusion unwinds around it. The fear generated is both personal (in the individuals who must figure out what is happening) and public (in the potential threat to millions of people from this mysterious plane). Guillermo del Toro’s skill as a filmmaker comes through in the careful, back-and-forth cutting between the growing list of players, building tensions through the positioning. I could imagine the cuts between close-ups of Eph donning his hazard gear, and long shots of the dead plane sitting dark on the landing strip. An effective sense of dread builds throughout the first half of the book, short bursts of scary intercut among the puzzled wonderings of the investigators.  The thoughtful dismantling of the safe and familiar into monstrous and alien works very well in some of the tightly focused scenes.  For instance, when the child-vamp jumps off the kitchen counter to attack his neighbor.

Unfortunately, the book becomes less and less scary as it progresses. Once the vampires were out en masse, I was less bothered by them. An insistence on a metaphysical evil to accompany the scientific explanation of the vampires feels clumsy. And one particular pun about child custody is a real groaner. The careful explication of their rat-like nesting and rustling and sneaking and twitching is not quite as effective as the building sense of dread from the early sections of the book. And though the story starts off with a promising set of both male and female characters (good and not-so-much) the story reverts to form when things get grisly, and the women end up (un)dead, bait, or tending the children back at the safe-house.

There is nothing new about monsters as cultural/political metaphor. I’m not yet certain of the metaphoric referent of The Strain. Does the title refer to the virus-like quality of the spread of the vampires? Perhaps to the stress caused by the new (old) danger? Likely some ambiguity is intentional. This book is the first in a trilogy. I was disappointed with the lack of meaningful resolution to any of the storylines in this one. I think readers are meant to be left on the edge of our seats, waiting for the next installment. But the presentation of new characters in the final pages feels somehow awkward and predictable, and I was left a little flat as I closed the book.

One hook, one character got to me. I will likely read the sequel, if only to find out just what is going to happen to Gus and his commando-vamp kidnappers in the asbestos mine near Philadelphia. I kid you not.

The Official Site (have fun finding out what’s there; I found it too creepy to look)

The Amazon Site (the Shed Scene Book Trailer with Eph, Nora and Abraham, and an introduction by Guillermo del Toro)

The Jail Scene Book Trailer (with Gus and Abraham, ge-ross)