Saturday, August 17, 2019

The Sentinel by Jeffrey Konvitz

(hb; 1974: prequel to The Guardian)

From the inside flap

“When Allison Parker found the old brownstone apartment it was to be a new beginning─a place where she cold forge the agony of her father’s illness and death, a place where she could quietly recover from that long ordeal. But slowly a sense of mounting terror began to take over. The neighbors─the old man and his cat, the two strange women, the blind priest─seemed to be something other than what they appeared.

“Then the headaches began. They had plagued her as she watched her father die; now they returned with an intensity that left her numb and shaken, threatening her tenuous grip on reality. And then she realized that here on  this quiet street an epic battle was being waged, a battle ordained from the beginning of time; and she was the prize.”


Review

Sentinel is an excellent, often-unnerving horror novel, with some terrifying images and action, and a pervasive sense of dread throughout its run. Its characters range from religious-iconic shallow and evil to fully realized (especially Christina and her boyfriend, Michael)─most of them work in the story. I write “most” because of the way two next-door lesbians are presented: the outsized horror and derision that is shown toward them may raise the hackles of modern-day LGBT+ supporters (Christina, in general, is horrified by them; Michael dismisses them as “vicious”).

I was initially alarmed at the venom Christina verbally and physically displays towards them (she does not just condemn them for being publicly lascivious, she condemns them for being lesbians). Then I checked myself, remembered Christina─victimized by her family and Catholic─is repressed, so any enthusiastic lustful displays are bound to offend her, especially those expressed by a group that most religions have demonized for thousands of years. Not only that, the 1970s, while progressing women’s rights (up to a point), were a period─like now─when aggressive, necessary feminism was getting a lot of scary, verbal and physical pushback not only from men, but gender-traitorous hausfrau women.

I normally would not give this much “airtime” to an issue that should be dismissed with an understanding of presentism (judge a work by the society and time period that produced it) and its protagonist’s paranoid bias. Unfortunately, a lot of knee-jerk social warriors may not take the time to check their biases while reading this hard-to-set-down, no-words-wasted suspense/horror novel, which may be a milestone for many, including myself, in the 1970s.

This vivid-enough-to be-called-cinematic book is worth owning, if you can get past its dated, egregious attitudinal flaws regarding women and LGBT+ issues. Followed by The Guardian.

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The resulting film was released stateside on January 7, 1977. Michael Winner directed and co-wrote the film. His co-screenwriter was book-source author Jeffrey Konvitz.

Christina Raines played Allison Parker. Chris Sarandon play Michael Lerman. Jeff Goldblum played Jack. Deborah Raffin played Jennifer.

Ava Gardner played Miss Logan. Eli Wallach played Detective Gatz. Christopher Walken played Detective Rizzo. 

Burgess Meredith played Charles Chazen. Sylvia Miles played Gerde. Beverly D’Angelo played Sandra. Kate Harrington played Mrs. Clark.

Martin Balsam played Professor Ruzinsky. Hank Garrett played Brenner. William Hickey played Perry.

Arthur Kennedy played Monsignor Franchino. John Carradine played Father Halliran. José Ferrer played “Robed Figure.” Jerry Orbach played “Film Director.” Tom Berrenger played “Man at end.” Nana Visitor, billed as Nana Tucker, played "Girl at end."

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