“Vampires in the Coal Mines”: A Review of Gary Lee Vincent’s Darkened Hollows
(Burning Bulb Publishing, 2011, ISBN: 9780615527222) In this sequel to Darkened Hills (2010), which I recently reviewed, Gary Lee Vincent begins to hit his stride as both a storyteller and an integrator of the culture and communities of West Virginia into the vampire genre. Over the first quarter or so of the novel, Vincent fills in the gaps in the story told in the previous book, an interesting technique that he handles with craft. Through narrative supported by fictional newspaper articles, court transcripts, and other devices, he gives the reader a broader understanding of the events that transpired in the fictional WV town of Melas (that’s Salem, spelled backwards) in the prequel. As I eluded to at the onset, this novel in many ways surpasses its predecessor, delving deeper into both vampire/demon mythology and two main staples of West Virginia—the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (the fiction Weston Lunatic Asylum in the novel) and the coal mine. A standout section of the book is ch...