This was going to be a short dip into the delightfully murky waters of Point Horror, a nostalgic nod to the series that brought me thrills, chills, and cosy-book-time comfort in childhood. Then I started re-reading some of my favourites and decided to spread them out over a couple of posts so I could revel in the detail. There will be spoilers.
The Perfume by Caroline B. Cooney
CW: Pregnancy loss, vanishing twin syndrome (VTS), teenage mental health
Of all the Point Horror books I read as a kid The Perfume had the cover that stayed with me. That exotic, sophisticated and very clearly evil snake bottle, green vapours swirling, has lived rent free in my head for decades. It hints at the kind of perfume Isabella Rosselini might dab onto her porcelain neck before withering you with a mere glance. And the font, oh the font.
Caroline B. Cooney has, according to the internet, sold over 15million books. I don’t know if that’s true, but she has written approximately 1million books, of which 78% are Point Horrors (do not fact check). Of Cooney’s Point Horrors, The Stranger, Freeze Tag and The Cheerleader are others that I remember reading, curled up on my beanbag with unlimited hot chocolate (thanks, mum!)
The Perfume: what didn’t work for me. The character names are as grating to me now as they were when I read this aged 11. Dove Daniel. And the twin that died before birth, Wing. Dove. And Wing. Dove, who is gentle, pastel-coloured, soft and nicknamed ‘Dove Bar’ by friends, and Wing, who would have been destined to fly… we’ll come back to Wing shortly. [Side note: There’s a section in the first Freakonomics book about whether a child’s name influences their destiny…]
That's a minor quibble though, overall I loved re-visiting this book.
Dove Daniel: alliterative and annoying, but that’s more down to how she is written (‘cooing’ and scared of colourful clothes “as if she would not be Dove any longer were she to break forth into brightness”) rather than the character herself. An outwardly timid teen who longs to break free of muted expectations, compliant with friends and keen to please her disinterested parents, Dove is east to identify with. Throw in some family trauma, an ancient horror unleashed, and a few unfortunate deaths, and you have a powerful exploration of teenage years full of raging hormones and identity crises.
There is something so dramatic about Cooney’s writing in this book - if you go along with it, you are in for a wild ride.
“It wrapped itself around her heart.
Venom.
It was primitive and dark. It went back before history. Before civilisation or time. Before sanity.”
I mean… what more do you want? And the perfume is called Venom! Heady stuff indeed.
Everything in the book is imbued with menace and darkness. Parking lots are like cemeteries, clothes shops – when they aren’t disappearing completely - disorient shoppers with dry ice and offer up tantalising new products, and a whole page is dedicated to the town’s hard concrete condominiums set against the soft sky. Even the seasons have it in for poor Dove:
“The air was raw and meant Spring had collapsed; let Winter pierce it like a pin in a balloon. There was no safety in Spring. Spring could double back and vanish into Winter without giving notice. I hate seasons, thought Dove. You cannot trust a season.”
The story really kicks off when Dove – dragged to Dry Ice (yes, the name of the store, not just the atmospheric gimmick) against her better judgement – is drawn to a new perfume, Venom. The vapours do their thing, “a cologne of terror invading Dove’s mouth.” She buys it and carries it around, and things get weird. To be fair, she does put the bottle in the bin later on but like any evil artefact worth its salt, it proves hard to dispose of. Alongside this we find out that Dove’s parents are pricks. They largely ignore Dove, and when they do grace her with a bit of attention or information about her life, they barely disguise their disappointment that Dove is there when it was Wing who might have lived “beating free and flying strong.” Of course Dove has felt invisible and unwanted, a perfectionist formed from striving to be a child her parents might want. They haven’t talked healthily about Wing, or grieved as a family. Wing is something different for each of them, and to Dove she is everything Dove isn’t.
The opening of the perfume bottle unleashes something and this is where the story turns to talk of trepanning (drilling – or scraping, nnnng – a hole into the skull to provide evil with an escape hatch), ancient Egyptians with scarab necklaces, asps, and the brilliantly gory term “scalp flap”. Wing is released, at first audible only in Dove’s head, with a voice “like cubes of ice breaking”, accusing Dove of being boring because she is nice, generous, thoughtful and careful. As Wing starts to physically take over, we enter a fascinating section of the book that reflects a teenage disassociation with a changing body, and the insecurities that come with comparing ourselves with others. Dove, now a passenger in her own skin, watches on in horror as Wing transfixes and then shocks her friends, behaving in ways Dove would never dream of. Interestingly, Wing calls out the ‘Maternal and Paternal Bodies’ for their lack of attention, so the good/evil dichotomy is challenged, and we start to suspect that Wing is not Dove’s opposite, but the part of herself she has never allowed to surface. Wing tells her directly, “I am you.” Mom and Dad meanwhile are surprised by the hostility and wonder where oh where has their sweet girl gone. (Hey, puberty).
Question: There is a scene where a very dull boyfriend interest, Timmy, takes Dove/Wing on a date… in a hot air balloon, that he can seemingly fly freely wherever the sod he wants. What of air safety? Who let’s a teenager do that? Anyway, soz Timmy, I couldn’t bring myself to care when you were in peril.
The book is pacy, and we speed through Wing having a moment in the fountain at the (pyramid shaped) mall, some will-they-won’t-they-die threats to schoolmates, and a prescient comment on viral videos when Wing addresses the gods of the Nile in aforementioned fountain scandal: “Too bad nobody had a video because everyone at school would love it.” Towards the end, Dove starts speaking – audibly – for the two of them, and those around her can only see a young girl having some kind of breakdown. The key to Dove’s resurfacing is another scent: lilac. The smell of the blooms brings Dove back into herself. Our sense of smell can trigger powerful memories, so speedy is the olfactory signal-limbic system connection, and here a scent works brilliantly as both the source of the book’s evil and the protagonist’s redemption. Lilacs can represent innocence, spiritualist, and tranquility, so are an effective foil to the dark venomous vapour that Wing danced in on. Dove is left to take responsibility for Wing’s actions, and to try and explain how she has been misunderstood. I was worried when the school psychologist mentions an ‘institution’ as a potential solution for Dove’s struggles, but the book doesn’t spend too much time on lazy mental health tropes barring the last chapter where a hospital and meds do come into play without much exploration.
And finally, please, a round of applause for this line:
“Dove: named for peace, going to war.”
The story is on point when it comes to the trials and tribulations of teenage life, and of dealing with parental neglect and unresolved family grief. As teens we try on different personalities and try to discover who we really are, and we can feel betrayed by our bodies as they morph and change. By exploring all that through a story that is – like the titular perfume – evocative and disorienting, Cooney creates something that lingers long after you’ve put the book down.
It would be remiss of me to write a post about Point Horror books and not mention one of the proudest moments of my damn life. I wrote a post years ago for For Books’ Sake, that detailed my love for Point Horror books, and I got a tweet back from R. L. Stine himself! He had read the post! R. L. bloody Stine! That particular post has gone to the blog graveyard in the cloud, but I will keep this screenshot forever.
Next up in this series: I will probably post about my absolute fave PH books: The Forbidden Game trilogy. I'm also planning to take part in the Point Horror Book Club on Instagram <3
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