Since its 1992 release this book has been very popular in the goth scene. It’s about vampires, and you know a lot of us are suckers (#SorryNotSorry) for them. Despite the word goth not being used in it, the club kids described are probably goths, and the music we love is referenced a lot. At the time it was also unique / controversial because it’s so graphic. This might have resonated with young goths, but also disgusted some. I read this for the first time recently, so I am not looking at this through rose (or blood) tinted glasses of nostalgia. This book came out two years before I was born after all!
This novel is adapted from the short story The Seed Of Lost Souls. The characters Ghost and Steve also featured in other short stories by Poppy Z. Brite. They have a band called Lost Souls? which the main protagonist Nothing loves and wants to find. I didn’t really find them interesting characters.
The vampire lore is interesting in this one though; they are another species - born, not sired. Younger vampires seem very human, they can eat and drink like humans, aren’t sensitive to the sun and don’t have fangs (which is why I was confused if Nothing was a vampire at first - he’s half human, after all). Elder vampires are more like the classic vampires, but there’s just one of them in this book. I wish the lore would have been explored more in this book.
The book starts during a Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans. Christian is a bartender and an elder vampire, and three younger vampires called Zillah, Twig and Molochai arrive. They party hard, and Zillah ends up unknowingly impregnating a 15 year old girl called Jessy. Christian takes care of her until she dies giving birth. He names the baby Nothing, and puts him on a human couple’s doorstep. They take him in, call him Jason and raise him.
We fast-track until Nothing is 15 himself. He finds the note Christian left with him, and discovers his real name. He wants to find his family, meet the band he loves and just get out of his hometown - what kid doesn’t, lol. Of course achieving that is easy for him. He manages to run away, and happens to meet the three vampires on the way to finding Ghost and Steve. At the same time Christian also heads the same way. Super convenient and lazy plot, in my opinion. The ending wasn’t satisfying either.
Like I mentioned, the book is VERY graphic. There’s self harm, rape, incest, all kinds of substances, etc. They’re written like you’re not supposed to bat an eye at it. It can be quite tough to read, and potentially triggering. Overall I don’t think it’s very well written, it’s very overly descriptive (and not in a flowery 1800s kind of way) and it’s pretty juvenile (Brite was pretty young when this was written, so that explains it a little). I don’t appreciate how the women were treated, that apparently stemmed from Brite’s own gender issues. Does that excuse all of this? I’m not completely convinced. I read the preview of Drawing Blood in the back of the book, and that one seemed just as bad.
So as an adult who read this for the first time over 25 years after it came out, I didn’t enjoy it very much. I guess most people read this as teens, and enjoyed it then. I don’t know if I would have had I read it as a teen, but I’m glad I didn’t, cause I don’t know how well I could have handled some of the themes in this. I don’t see myself reading it again. I’ll give this 2 coffins.
The next book I will be talking about is The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas! I haven’t read it yet, so I’m excited for that! Feel free to join me! Until next time!