ParagonParagon relies heavily on Greek mythology and demons to make its case about a young woman, Louise, who comes across a strange and ancient magic when she gets what she thinks is the man of her dreams. Eric Troy is the perfect man: handsome, caring, smart, talented, famous, and... Evil?
Louise saves the life of Desma, an ugly old bag lady who looks like she needs a bath more than Louise needs her help. But Desma insists that she can grant Louise a wish; one that will ease her loneliness and single-hood. You see, Louise is a thirty-something who has never really had men clamoring after her. But after Desma gives her the step-by-step spell that is guaranteed to make her man of awesomeness appear, Louise decides to give it a go. She works the spell, which involves a sculpture of a man made up of Louise’s picks for perfect male features, and viola! Into her life comes Eric Troy, a gorgeous young actor who seems to be in love with Louise. Everyone, not just Louise, is surprised by his affections. I mean, he could do way better than Louise. Even herb Greenbaum, Eric’s agent, is surprised by the couple, but he decides that maybe Eric knows a good thing when he sees one, because Louise has got brains.
A few strange things happen, like the time Louise thinks Eric may have hidden her birth control pills, but nothing too weird. It isn’t until Louise realizes that Desma warned her not to delve too deeply into Eric’s past, and that Eric himself is extremely evasive about where he comes from and his family, that she does a little research on her own. And that’s when it hits the fan. Eric comes clean and tells her his main objective; to impregnate as many women as possible. And he wants Louise to stay with him as his manager anyway.
Louise agrees, devastated, knowing she can’t stop him from sleeping with other women. After a few more ominous visits from Desma, Louise and Herb start to put the pieces together; Every time something good happens to Eric, something bad happens to someone else; Desma’s strange ritual; and of course, his evasiveness about his past. Could Eric be more than human? Could he be supernatural?
Paragon takes a while to get going but once it does it’s fairly promising. The horror elements often aren’t as strong as the romance elements, and the mythology utilized in the storytelling (particularly the myths of Pygmalion and Cupid and Psyche) are bent to author Watkins’s will whenever she pleases.
The character of Louise is sometimes strong and sometimes weak, but it’s easy to despise her for putting up with Eric’s philandering despite her curiosity about his past. It’s only the thread of hope that she might be saving innocent women from an unknown evil that makes her staying along for Eric’s ride even acceptable or palatable. Of course Louise does end up a heroine of sorts, and she is very well-known to the reader by that time. But I can’t help wishing the novel hadn’t grated so soundly upon the gates of my tattered heart, hearkening back to the days of high school (and later) when I would let men walk all over me. I guess this kind of reaction, while not positive, is a sign that Watkins is a good writer? Getting your audience to not only identify with, but become enraged by, the actions of your female protagonist must account for some good character writing.
In any case, a little off-the-beaten-path for horror, demons and gods mix and history becomes a great unknown in E.F. Watkins’s Paragon. It’s also a pretty good story about relationships and how much getting cheated on can really suck, even in the face of the destruction of the universe.