Bereavements

More typical of Lortz's preoccupation with infinite sadness and the monstrosities which it produces is Bereavements, re-released as part of the WhiteWolf / Borealis horror line in 1995. The story is both original and fascinating: A wealthy New York widow, in attempting to come to terms with the death of her teenage son, searches for ways to cheat mortality. One is to advertise in the Village Voice for a replacement son, using the ad, "Mother who lost son, seeks son who lost mother." This ad attracts three very striking and disturbed characters who "court her favors," while she pursues another more grotesque form of grieving, that of keeping the body of her son, Jamie, preserved through cryogenics. These young men all have their own motives for responding to the ad, and it is the interplay of their desires against the widow's overwhelming need to escape her state of "bereavement" that moves the novel. The horror scenes are very subtle, again more poetic than horrific, although...