Vampire Brats

Poppy Z. Brite
Lost Souls
Dell Publishing, 1992

At my advanced age I felt like a real drip reading (and enjoying) this novel of angst-ridden vampires and goth kids.

On the other hand, I’m glad that I didn’t read it when I was a teenager because I would have been INSUFFERABLE afterward–and I was annoying enough already back then. I know how obsessive I can get. This book would have effected me. It would have changed my life. I would have started to wear all black. I probably would have gotten into eyeliner. I would have dug deep into Sisters of Mercy B-sides. I would have spent my senior year prom night hanging out in a cemetery. There’s not a doubt in my mind, no sir.

It’s a novel with nearly surefire appeal to lost adolescents. Most of the characters are lonely in that teenager way. They want surrogate families and friends. Sex is confusing so they’re happy to merely cuddle with someone–anyone–who treats them like they belong.

There’s a 15-year-old vampire orphan named Nothing (yep, that’s his name) who doesn’t know what he is, yet (in Poppy Z. Brite’s world, to be a vampire is an inherited trait, like an ethnicity; no one gets turned into a vampire). Then, there’s this young, ethereal, Captain Sensitive psychic named Ghost (yep, that’s his name) who plays in a two-man rock band that put out a self-released cassette that found its way into Nothing’s tape deck and into his little disturbed heart. When Kid Vampire runs away from his foster home with a bus ticket and almost no money, where does he go? To the band’s address that’s printed on the cassette, of course. The kids know why. Almost every troubled teen feels closer to the musicians they like then to the people around them. It’s the only place where Nothing knows for sure that he’ll find something.

Along the way, Nothing falls in with what you might call a “bad crowd”, a trio of ultra-decadent fellow vamps who travel the country in a trashed-out van (just like a rock band) and do whatever they want to whomever they want. They’re three guys who like to sleep with pretty girls. They also like to sleep with pretty boys. They also like to sleep with each other. At least a few of them are hovering around 100-years old, but they exist in a state of arrested adolescence. No responsibilities. They probably can’t even spell the word. Their leader is the smallest and the most pretty one in the gang. He’s called Zillah (yep, that’s his name) and Brite can’t stop writing about his “emerald” eyes. (All of the main characters here are Tiger Beat gorgeous, by the way, according to Brite’s descriptions.)

To Nothing, these jerks are his new family. They get him. They accept him. They give him drugs and sex and they don’t kick him out of the van. Nothing finally has an idea of what he wants to be when he grows up.

But WATCH OUT because there’s another vampire out there. His name is Christian. He looks young, but he’s well over 300-years-old. He’s seen it all. Most everyone he’s ever known is dead. He can’t make friends with normal people. He can’t reveal what he is to most people. He’s cool and reserved, but also desperately lonely. When given the chance, he’ll do just about anything for companionship.

He’s not that much different from Nothing, despite the years. He’s a young vampire’s future.

This is a trashy novel (and entertainingly so) that turns on a few too many goofball coincidences, but it’s got heart and it’s got drive. It’s not cynical or calculated. Brite was too young for that sort of thing (only 25 years old when this was first published in 1992). There’s a first-time novelist’s earnest fire here to put forth something that you might not have seen in the book racks before. Everything takes you right back to the late 1980s-early 90s, when this blend of teen trauma, genital-ripping gore, then-edgy rock music references and taboo sex felt like a new frontier. Brite’s writing offers up a keen eye for truly ghastly imagery and rides a zip tube straight through the turns of its twisted soap opera.

Still, if you hate this book, you might like to know that Poppy Z. Brite doesn’t think much of it, either. In fact, Poppy Z. Brite is no longer Poppy Z. Brite. The author has in recent years identified as a man named Billy Martin. Martin is over vampires and no longer writes fiction, but you can buy some cool vintage baubles and broaches from him.

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