This moody, erotically-charged cover art, by American romance illustrator H. Tom Hall, is perfectly fit for a sophisticated novel of doomed romance and obsession; I bought this paperback over a decade ago solely for its melodramatic atmosphere. I knew nothing of author Rosalind Ashe (1931-2006), and assumed the title, Moths, referred to the hapless male victims of a magnetic, alluring, possibly dangerous woman of incomparable beauty and passions. And... I was right.
back cover, 1977 Warner Books
The blurb comparison to Daphne du Maurier and her classic 1938 novel Rebecca is apt, though Moths doesn't reach the heights of suspense and emotional turmoil of that work. How could it? Yet this novel offers some good escapist fare, kind of what they're calling "romantasy" today, I think. The style, first person by an Oxford professor, is quite a bit plummy; I was constantly Googling his various allusions and references and poetic quotes to truly grasp and appreciate what was happening. Personally I find a lot of British culture, of whatever class, very interesting (piqued by decades-long obsession with the first wave of punk rock in the mid-Seventies), so this was fine and dandy for me. Other readers might take this as a warning, however, who don't have patience for an academic approach to such goings-on.
Author Ashe, undated
Me, I was quite taken from the first with the professor's tale, lush and literate and over-heated, with that kind of charming self-satisfaction an intellectually Oxford don can have. With dripping atmosphere to spare, Prof. Harry regales us with descriptions of deep-wooded Dower House and its flowering environs (clearly evoking Rebecca's Manderley), a rustic old estate for sale which he explores in the novel's opening. Once inhabited by a mysterious actress of the Regency era, Dower House draws our Prof. inexplicably in.
Penguin UK, 1977
There, also exploring the grounds, he meets the Boyces, a couple eager to make the place their own: James, another professor who is less committed to his work than to his mistresses; and his enchanting wife "Mo" (short for Mnemosyne, Greek for memory, and mother of the Muses, not to pretentious now!), who charms Prof. more than Dower House itself. Prof. Harry is able to befriend the two and thus finds himself invited into the home and their lives... and passions. James was her senior by ten years, a self-made academic... She was the last of a line of penniless aristocrats... In California, or on another social rung, she might have turned flower-child, perhaps Jesus-freak. As it was, she had an altogether unusual charm...
1990 reprint
Ashe weaves a luscious stew of supernatural hints and erotic trysts in a delightfully dated Seventies style, very Jolly Old England, very gender-normative, very femme fatale. But is the femme fatale a ghost, a possession, an imagination? Who is this madwoman who, as the title explicitly implies, draws hapless men into her fiery embrace? Bodies turn up, cops are on the case, a diary is read revealing murder... poor Harry, can't he catch a break? This woman, Mo, also called Nemo (Latin for "no one") is alluring, even unto death. Mood swings, migraines, to put up with her idiosyncrasies requires utmost submission. Never had she been more lovely, more violently alive. The Regency actress who inhabited her seemed positively recharged by another victim: the dead thriving on the dead.
Japanese edition, perfectly captures the setting
Moths will more appeal to readers who enjoy long-fuse occult/supernatural novels like Sweetheart, Sweetheart and Burnt Offerings. This was Ashe's first novel (and recently reprinted by Valancourt!), and the others she wrote all seem to have a similar Gothic vibe of windswept locales, mysterious romances, the distant threat of madness and death, all supplied in that kind of wordy and ornate prose that might turn off readers looking for real horror business. Yet I myself rather enjoyed its literate, allusive nature, as it moves slowly but inexorably to its conclusion—I am nothing more than that moth.
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