That being said, one trend I cannot abide is this new obsession with vampires who've been neutered. Not in the literal sense of course; these things are often randier than a cat in heat. But what began with Stephenie Meyers' Twilight series has now branched into a mega-universe of sexy, chiseled men with Fabio hair and tribal tattoos (if you go by the covers of the books, anyway, which is what I shamelessly judge most of them on) who fall in love with mortal women that are just ~oh so special~ and warranting giving up an eternity for. Even authors who've been churning out straight-up bodice-ripper romance have now set their sights on the paranormal genre; they know what puts bread on their tables. And until the fanaticism for all things supernatural wanes, this is a trend that's going to continue.
However, I for one am old-school; I grew up with horror movies, and I can't abide their newfound Harlequin-romance mentality. Where is the meat? Where's the fear? This is an undead creature that exists solely to rip your throat out and drink your life, damnit! We've taken everything that makes a vampire dangerous and savage and removed it, made him 'safe'; in essence, we've childproofed the entire genre!
Enter Jemiah Jefferson.
A feisty nerd powerhouse hailing from the Pacific Northwest, Jemiah has, pardon the pun, injected life back into the undead. Her novels were originally published in the late 90s-early 00s, but are up for reprint in January 2011. As a friend and a fan, I'm telling you all right now to do yourselves a favor and slap them on your Amazon wishlists. And here's why.
When I first picked up Jemiah's debut novel, Voice of the Blood, I was immediately enchanted by the characters she'd created, the world she'd placed them in. Her narrator and heroine is Ariane Dempsey, a multi-racial biologist working as a grad student at the university and living with her charmingly befuddled English boyfriend John. John is leaving for a trip abroad and he and Ariane are sniping at each other as only long-time couples can do with such enthusiasm; when John is gone, however, Ariane's life begins to spiral wildly out of control. She is attacked by a savage beast in her laboratory one night, who then sends her an apology note a few days later after she's released from the hospital; his name is Orfeo Ricari and he wants to make it up to her.
Never before have we met a vampire quite like Orfeo Ricari; while in some ways he brings to mind Louis Pointe du Lac from the Anne Rice series, in others he is as different as they can be. Ricari is self-loathing and suicidal, but at the same time he is angsty and hypocritical to the point of pure maddening frustration. He agrees to tell his story to Ariane in exchange for her ending his life; in a funny twist of characterization, Ricari is a stout Catholic who loves being miserable, and refuses to kill himself on the off chance that he does have a soul possible to save. Ariane, of course, begins to fall in love with him, and she becomes so obsessed with Ricari that she vanishes from her normal life, abandoning the laboratory and her studies, avoiding John completely.
When the day comes, a sudden twist of events and change of mind involves Ariane being sent to Los Angeles, gravely injured, so that Ricari's offspring Daniel Blum can nurse her back to health. Ricari no longer wants anything to do with Ariane, and passes her off to Danny with the intent that he would know what to do with her.
Daniel is by far the most charismatic literary vampire since Zillah of Poppy Z Brite's cult-favorite novel Lost Souls; born in Berlin, Danny encompasses the very ideas of gluttony, self-indulgence, and depravity. He drinks blood in mass quantities whether he needs it or not, enjoys killing those he finds inferior, and is unexpectedly savage and crude. Yet he is immensely lovable; he is insecure and egotistical, narcissistic and wretched--- he is obsessed with pop culture, with being admired, with being known. He echoes Lestat, if we're keeping with the Anne Rice references, though he is not Lestat by any means. Lestat at his best was never this hedonistic; Daniel is a porn-reader's wet dream, a bisexual nymphomaniac with a harem of goth children who live with him in his derelict mansion and worship the ground he walks on. He makes no secret of being a vampire, and he intends to turn Ariane and his favorite follower Lovely into vampires at the first chance he can; he is very lonely and wants to keep them with him forever.
The latter books take turns with their narration; Wounds, the second novel, is told entirely from Daniel's perspective and focuses on his disastrous and tumultuous relationship with a charismatic and insane stripper/artist named Sybil. Fiend is Ricari's backstory, the entire novel focusing on the little Italian translator who grew up to be one of the oldest vampires in the world. And A Drop of Scarlet alternates between Ariane and John as narrators, with interjections from several other supporting characters seen throughout the series.
Other authors have attempted the gimmick of switching narrators before, but so few do it right. Jemiah Jefferson has a strong grasp of each character's voice; Ariane is intelligent but self-absorbed, Daniel whimsical and unapologetic, Ricari distracted and self-pitying. Perhaps most poignant are the broken-versed passages written from John's point of view; a mishap leaves John's thoughts fractured and incoherent with frightening glimpses of absolute lucidity, and Jemiah delivers these with a deft, unrelenting hand. Her prose is elegant and pornographic all at once; she writes what she knows, her own love of counterculture coming through in references to obscure music and locales you know that she herself has visited, her characters a conglomeration of people she has known throughout her life with her own creativity filling in the gaps.
I read the first novel back in 2000 and I still find myself wanting to walk into a Denny's in Los Angeles and see a tall goth boy with spiky black hair tucked into the corner booth, eating french fries and fondling a redhaired girl while the other patrons look on in scandalized dismay. Since 2000, Jemiah and I have become friends, but foremost I remain a devoted fan; her writing is lush and elegant, as decadent as black-market truffles, and if you are a fan of vampires who suck blood instead of sparkle and don't save sex for That One Special Girl, then Jefferson's novels will deliver exactly what you're craving.
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