Harrowing Historicals: Review | The Countess by Rebecca Johns

Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Crown
Release Date: October 12th, 2010
Source: I received this ARC from the publisher for review.

The Countess by Rebecca Johns takes a realistic look at the life of Elizabeth Bathory (Erzsébet Báthory in Hungarian and in the book), known throughout history as “the Blood Countess”. Thought to be the first female serial killer, in her time Elizabeth Bathory was said to have killed many of the hundreds of peasant girls who came to work as servants in her castles, believing that bathing in virgin blood would aid in youth restoration. The Countess takes the stance that Elizabeth Bathory’s dark deeds have perhaps been exaggerated over time (vampire fanatics even believe her to have been a vampire; her contemporaries called her a witch), though the cruel torture and eventual deaths of several girls did occur under her watch.

Johns’s story portrays Erzsébet as a strict mistress whose demand for perfection in her unruly maidservants leads to brutal punishments, many of which go dreadfully awry. Whenever the Countess would catch a female member of her staff shirking her duties, stealing, sleeping with a male member of the staff, or displaying in any way what Erzsébet considered sloth-like tenancies, off to the cellar the maid would go to receive the harshest beating of her existence. With a sickening level of enthusiasm, Erzsébet would come up with grotesquely creative methods of punishments to inflict on her staff of servants, and if one happened to die in the process, she saw herself as the better off for it, for it was one less mouth to feed; one less marriage to arrange and dowry to supply. Her killings are never even slightly justifiable to the reader, but the level of nonchalance with which they are treated by Erzsébet and her few supporters indicates them as par for the course, setting a quietly ominous and sinister tone.

While the Countess’s overzealous torture methods were nothing less than depraved, the author actually managed to portray Erzsébet Báthory in a slightly sympathetic light. Because the Countess tells her story from the time she is a young girl, the reader is able to empathize with her plight, and by the time the killings actually take place at the end of the book, the monster we know of from history has already been made human.  I found the excerpt from Snow White that precedes the story to be a very clever analogy and forshadowing of what’s to come. Erzsébet Báthory was very much like the queen from Snow White – jealous, vain, and ruthless (and let me tell you, the original Brothers Grimm fairytale is nothing like anything Disney has to offer!). When she came across a girl in her household who was prettier, younger, and “fairer” than she, the Countess lost control–especially if that girl happened to be sleeping with the Count.

The Countess is exquisitely written in diary format addressed to Erzsébet’s son Pál and written from her prison cell. Because the real-life Erzsébet Báthory was in fact so well-educated–she spoke four languages fluently–the fantastic writing makes sense historically (I never understand fictitious diary-formatted books that portray uneducated, illiterate women from history as capable of composing such remarkably erudite memoirs). The Dramatis Personae at the beginning of the book also helps keep the story moving, as anytime I confused one of the many Hungarian names used throughout the book or forgot which distant relative was which, I could easily refer to this handy guide for support. I take issue with the synopsis at the back of the book, which is misleading in its catchphrase “Was the ‘Blood Countess’ history’s first and perhaps worst female serial killer? Or did her accusers create a violent fiction in order to remove this beautiful, intelligent, ambitious foe from the male-dominated world of Hungarian politics?”. In this riveting yet disturbing rendering, she is neither one of these descriptions, but rather, somewhere in between.

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