Breakfast with the Borgias
DBC Pierre
[Arrow Books, Hammer]
‘But how shall we get rid of the phone?’ The question looms over modern horror, resulting in all manner of narrative solutions. Stories set on mountains or in basements with no connectivity, ghosts who speak through phones, serial killers who smash Samsungs against walls… DBC Pierre confronts the theme head-on in Breakfast with the Borgias, in which the loss of phone signal threatens the hero’s career, his relationship, his sanity, and perhaps even his life. The novella – part of a series for Random House and Hammer Horror – ticks off familiar horror tropes. There is a creaky hotel on a cliffside, surrounded by an impenetrable fog. A family of eccentric residents, including their semi-feral adopted daughter, Gretchen, a bad seed with an emaciated body and long Ringu hair. And a bright, slightly guileless young academic called Ariel Panek, who is lured in and falls prey to Gretchen’s hysteria.
This might sound a bit hammy – it is hammy – but for all the awkward claims that ‘algorithms are the new DNA’ and text message ‘pings’ between lovers (oh dear), the story takes a nuanced look at identity in an age of tech solipsism, the crumbling of a self refracted between screens and avatars. Ariel’s relationship with his girlfriend, Zeva, is a very relatable portrayal of romance acted out on handheld screens: the back-and-forth bargaining, the long delicious wait for a call. It’s a fragile way to live, and Breakfast with the Borgias exposes the dangers of cloud-based humanity. Sadly, the story abandons this exploration of technology as a spirit medium, instead taking a turn into sinister situation comedy, a kind of Fawlty Towers with ghouls, or The League of Gentlemen with smartphones. That said, it’s melodramatic good fun: reason wears out like battery life, reality peels away like old wallpaper. The conclusion is suitably bittersweet. As the matriarch Margot says, ‘Nobody thinks about it, but every investment of feeling between souls is nothing more than a commitment to look upon the lifeless corpse of the other.’
Words: Róisín Kiberd
