Subtext (Underword)

"He followed her into the spare room and when she turned he was right there. He was pretty big and lifted her into the wall. She kicked out of her shoes and grabbed his hair, a fistful, and jerked his face away from hers so she could look at him."

—Underworld
by Don DeLillo (1997)

"This was what she had always longed for, after all, and an orgasmic thrill rippled endlessly through her palpitating body as, eyes tightly shut, she tilted her head back, offering Kraven her throat as well as her breast, should he choose to partake of her pulsing jugular."

—Underworld
by Greg Cox (2003)

The battle of the Underworlds is as rich with disappointments as it is with heads being maneuvered into the exact right position for sexual hunger. Greg Cox, novelizing the film script, can't shrug off its leaden banality; DeLillo, in turn, abandons his aesthetic principles to fictionalize the street corners of his youth. In a brighter world they would have switched jobs. Any hack can make the Sentimental Bronx Childhood genre sing mid-listily, and even tart it up with semi-pomo touches and baseball meditations; many M.F.A. programs now offer required coursework thereto. Meanwhile, only a Nobel-class maverick could bring some blood back to the vamps 'n' werewolves tradition; we are left with only our imaginings of the Master's sneaking sally through the allegory.