Some authors are subtle about their fantasies. Michael Schiefelbein, however, would rather not waste time with such things, and the result is Blood Brothers, his second exploration of his personal dark side. If you’ve already read Vampire Vow, one glance at the cover of Blood Brothers and you’ll know what to expect: brace yourself for another curious mingling of murder, homoerotic S&M, and religion. However, this is hardly a “second edition” of his first work.
In Vow, the main character was a vampire and thus was constrained only by the established physics of vampire-dom. Thus, Victor could fly around at night and “feed” indiscriminantly, and if his immortality made him cold towards the little Lukes of the world, and that made you uncomfortable, well, welcome to vampire-land. Here, Juan Ramon is a regular, mortal human who will grow old and die, and Schielfelbein is now constrained to the real world. Mostly. This is, after all, fiction. But he does stay grounded, so in a way, he’s evolving his art into a more difficult arena.
The plot is no mystery. Boy watches parents murdered, boy’s life becomes one of revenge, man (grown-up boy) discovers that head killer’s son is his same age and in a monastery, man slyly achieves assignment to same monastery and seduces son. Bernardo is hopelessly smitten with Juan (Schiefelbein’s protagonists always attract this kind of attention), but unlike the Luke-Victor pairing from Vow, Bernardo is more evenly matched to Juan. OK, it’s not perfect, but you can feel it.
The book is written in first person, switching with each passing chapter between Juan and Bernardo, a device that works very well here. It certainly helps bolster the case that Bernardo is more than a pawn in Juan’s game (and also assures you that Bernardo won’t face Luke’s fate). Curiously, Bernardo gets the last word in an ending that is superb, if somewhat predictable.
The story is filled with Spanish, Latin, and church jargon, but only the latter will confound you if your upbringing was wholly secular. (Pun unintentional.)
Other than that, I have little to complain about this book. In fact, I am grateful to have read it, because it has caused me to consider the richness of fantasy that abounds within gay men. Perhaps when we are young and come to believe that our lives will be lived far from the “normal” course, we develop this ability to escape the coldness of reality. Even if the material offends you, you have to admit that it is refreshing to find a guy who brings his fantasies to life in his work.