Elizabeth by Ken Greenhall

 

Elizabeth thought that she was a young girl like any other girl - until the day that she looked into the mirror and saw the truth. Her family wouldn't have believed it even if she had told them - which she had no intention of doing. Elizabeth had far different plans for them - and only God could help them. He didn't - and Elizabeth set out to prove how hellishly far she could go.

Elizabeth is not your average 14 year old, and although she is descended from witches I'm not convinced that alone is at the heart of her actions. Elizabeth seems to have no real feelings or emotions. She is quite cold and detached from everyone, other than an apparition that observes her from the mirror.

Does Elizabeth have actual powers or is she just deluded? Does she suffer some sort of mental illness? She definitely feels no empathy but has taught herself to imitate it, much like someone with borderline personality disorder. Nothing seems to phase her, be it murder or sex acts, as she narrates the story on a very even keel whether she is telling you about a recent death or what interrupted her plans for an evening of incest.

I think Elizabeth could best be described as a cross between Carrie and Lolita, and I am at a loss of how I feel about it. 

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About the author

Ken Greenhall was born in Detroit in 1928, the son of immigrants from England. He graduated from high school at age 15, worked at a record store for a time, and was drafted into the military, serving in Germany. He earned his degree from Wayne State University and moved to New York, where he worked as an editor of reference books, first on the staff of the Encyclopedia Americana and later for the New Columbia Encyclopedia. Greenhall had a longtime interest in the supernatural and took leave from his job to write his first novel, Elizabeth (1976), a tale of witchcraft published under his mother’s maiden name, Jessica Hamilton. Several more novels followed, including Hell Hound (1977), which was published abroad as Baxter and adapted for a critically acclaimed 1989 French film under that title. Greenhall died in 2014.