Medusa and Her Sisters

Louise E. Allin, a poet and short-story writer, is also an English instructor at Cambrian College.

Apparently Clare Braux, a talented short-story writer, couldn’t decide
whether to write a mainstream novel, a mystery, or a thriller. Medusa
and Her Sisters has an identity crisis. At first the mood is Grand
Guignol. The reader needs a strong stomach to survive a gruesome
discovery, and much patience to wait until the more compelling
flashbacks begin. The protagonist is a humpbacked female artist who has
repressed her sexual feelings toward her Madonna-like cousin, newly
married and pregnant. Her voyeurism quickly becomes tedious: “I see
them embracing beyond the magnolia tree. Long, thick kisses. Is she
lonely in Spain? She’s too sensual for her own good.”

Despite these flaws, Braux shines in the sunny tapestry of the Spanish
seacoast, catching with devastating accuracy the aromatic spices in the
air, red beaches, and white sun; as well, she provides excellent
research on ancient goddess symbolism. But the plot drags
mercilessly—thanks to the dithering and intrusive narrator, whose
dialogue belongs in a Gothic romance (“Horror clawed at me ... What
twisted fate gripped us? ... What about Daphne’s husband, Gamaliel?
Was he connected to this horror?”)—and, in the end, collapses into
shameless melodrama. While the heroine has at least a grotesque
attraction, many of the other characters—the jealous, macho part-Arab
husband; the weak, submissive wife—are simply cardboard cutouts.