Reviews for Inez Baranay
“My Transylvanian Cousin”
Inez Baranay uses her Hungarian heritage to replay the vampire figure in the visit by Cousin Vlad to the Gold Coast in “My Transylvanian Cousin” [113-126]. Here the bright lights and garish touristy atmosphere of the Gold Coast are intertwined with the myths and ancientness of old Europe. If the vampire requires his consumption of fresh blood to survive, Baranay hints, by analogue, at the voraciousness of twenty-first century materialism devoid of sustaining myths that consolidate a clearly defined identity. It is the people of the twenty-first century, at play on the Gold Coast, who are seen as being far more at risk from moral and spiritual demise than Vlad on his necessary dose of blood. The true vampire emerges as western consumerism devouring everything in its path leaving no room for mythmaking, or spiritual growth.
In the review of the collection Best Stories Under the Sun at
http://www.cercles.com/review/r27/wilding5.htm
Always Hungry
Much as the reader might like the vampire to remain within the realms of metaphor, this playful, beguiling, horrifying and sexy book is also about the real thing. – Sydney Morning Herald
With The Tiger
Inez Baranay is very correct and vivid in her portrayal of India’s flavours of vadai, coffee and the music season. She exposes the experiences India offers foreigners seeking ‘nirvana’. – Deccan Herald
The Edge of Bali
Baranay writes evocatively of the Bali landscape, raising serious questions within vivid description. New myths jostle with the old. –Sydney Morning Herald
Sheila Power: an entertainment
A rattling good read that defies that defies pigeon-holing into any one genre. – Sydney Star Observer
Pagan
Pagan is brilliantly written. As well as being very readable, it offers a highly intelligent analysis of the themes of Australia’s 20th century cultural history. –The Advertiser
Between Careers
Like good sex Between Careers gets better and better. – Sydney Morning Herald
Rascal Rain: a year in Papua New Guinea
Her experiences have resulted in a highly readable account of a world left behind by the 6 o’clock news. – Cleo
all titles by Inez Baranay will be available as ebooks by the end of 2011 For full reviews and more please visit
My Transylvanian Cousin
Inez Baranay
Smashwords edition
copyright Inez Baranay 2011
first published in Best Stories Under the Sun
Myer and Wilding (eds.) CQUP 2004
Cover design by Daniel Stephensen
Discover other titles by Inez Baranay at Smashwords
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/inezb
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My Transylvanian Cousin
It is dark enough to step outside. I inhale salty air off the sea and gaze at the sculptural shape floating above the horizon at an indistinct distance at the northern end of the long beach: an other-worldly city, its tall towers seeming to lean into each other, shimmering in the fading last light of the day. Gold medallions glinting and flashing off high windows are reflections of the last rays of the sun, invisibly low out west, and are as much of daylight as I can now bear to see. From this distance that cluster of high-rise apartment blocks looks like a monolith, unsettlingly unvertical, shifting according to the changing light, appearing sometimes as a block of marble, sometimes as columns of smoke.
Electric lights come on, like fireflies. I turn to see the slowly blinking light of a plane in the southern sky; it pulsates with a briefly brighter flash, a farewell from cousin Vlad, old Europe returning with re-made knowledge from the new world. I go back inside. Should do some work.
I find a bottle of red opened. I sniff, it’s still all right. I pour a glass. Its scent bursts into my brain: grapes, sugar and bodily fluids, its rich sensation spreading in my mouth.
It wasn’t so very long ago, as I once counted time: an evening like any other. That mix of dread and pleasure as I pull the curtains, turn on a lamp. Red wine black coffee green tea. Time at the computer tapping, doodling, brain vibrating to the flicker of the screen. Restlessly pacing, flicking through TV channels or momentarily engrossed in a program, maybe getting interested in eating and either stirring a painstaking risotto or barely pausing to make some toast with cheese. New music or no music or old music, once in a while the phone, or switch the phone line to the modem. I can think of some mail I’d like to arrive. There’s no clear line between working and not working, this is a writer’s life. My editor has been at work today, plus there’s a personal reply due to me. The modem.
Dial up.
Delete these:
Turn phone calls into money. Doctor approved pills add 3 inches. Easily lose weight.
Ah, here it is: Re: corrections. And oh, here it is: Re: re: re: re:.
For now I deny I am wondering what Thai Boxing Guy could possibly say next. I’m not going to open that first. Open corrections first.
Attachments, edits on next ten chapters, nothing major, get rid of more of those semi-colons, all looking good. Just got to find that perfect ending. What is it with endings? Find it, then see about writing an ending with the Thai Boxing Guy. Show me something I haven’t seen. How do you get it right, not get into a blah mundane relationship but create an exhilarating reason to keep seeing each other?