Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite (Book Review)

For People who Want Their Vampires Nasty (and Gay)

This is not so much a review as a drooling fanboy celebration of the greatest vampire novel of the 20^th century. I'm not denigrating Anne Rice or Stephen King. Both Salem's Lot and The Vampire Lestat are fine novels. I'm simply saying that if you are a fan of vampire horror, you need to read this book. It's too fucking evil to just leave on your shelf or in the back of your mind. It's gloriously fucked up and disturbing.

Lost Souls is a vicious vampire novel, full of youthful energy and nightmare inducing scenes. Yet, it has the mature plotting and characterization of a writer at the top of his game. Published when vampire fans were debating whether Tale of the Body Thief was really that bad, Brite's vampire novel gave us beautiful asshole psychopaths. In contrast to Rice's guilt-ridden gay-coded vampires, Brite's vampires fuck and drink and tear their way out of their mother's wombs without shame.

Lost Souls carries the same unease as looking at pictures from when you were a teenager. Yes, you were adorable and cute with those cheekbones and pouty lips, but you were also cruel and nasty, constantly using others. At least, that describes me. Not since The Picture of Dorian Gray has a novel so captured the terror of eternal youth.

Brite started writing this book when he was 19 and published it at 25 and it's very much a young man's book. There are few adults like Kinsey Hummingbird, owner of the Sacred Yew, a small town bar frequented by troubled youth and Christian, the bartender vampire. They mostly make way for the destructive children who dominate the narrative. The vampire trio of Molochi, Twig and Zillah dominate the book from the prologue when they enter Christian's bar on Mardi Gras. They find Jessy, a teenage girl obsessed with vampires. Molochi and Twig want to drain her, but Zillah is horny so he gets her pregnant and dooms her. She dies in childbirth after the vampire trio has moved on.

In this mythology, vampires are born not made. The reader doesn't learn this until Christian's victim begs him to transform hm. Christian drains his blood and leaves him dead. No vampire takes the time to refute the commonly held belief. Why would they? The myth sends them willing prey, convinced that they will become vampires instead of food. Also vampires kill their mothers in childbirth, so every time Zillah fucks a woman, he's possibly condemning her to a long painful death.

Beyond the vampires, no one comes off well. Steve and Ghost show up in several stories as sensitive young men and bandmates who are closer than any lovers. Certainly, Steve cares more about Ghost than Ann, his ex whom he sexually assaults. Ghost is sensitive and psychic, almost a Christ figure. Steve, by contrast, is a bro, a dude, a jerk, a young man who wants to do the right thing but is as toxic in the normal young man way. Steve might have been the villain were it not for the vampires. Ann has rotten taste in men since she ends up with Zillah shortly thereafter.

Then there's Nothing, the lonely teenage boy who drinks his blood and obsesses over Steve and Ghost's band Lost Souls? He doesn't know it, but he's Zillah's son from Jessy. When the vampire trio pick up him up as a hitchhiker, they ply him with sex and drugs and blood. It's their standard act culminating in a violent murder. Their cue is when the hitchhiker realizes that he's drinking blood and panics. Nothing enjoys the blood so they keep him around.

Not to worry, they pick up Nothing's best friend who also runs away. After a tearful reunion with Nothing, they kill him instead.

From these plot threads, Brite takes the reader through a hellscape of lust and casual cruelty. This is not a book for the weak. Incest, home invasions and gleeful evil proliferate as the book speeds to a conclusion that is both disturbing and inevitable. Many years ago, a friend recommended this book as the most fucked up book he had ever read. In one discussion, he mentioned the death of a character whose reaction to getting killed was “oh thank you for taking me away from these assholes.”

This is not a subtle quiet horror book of lost innocence. This is a nasty over-the-top indulgent experience where vampires destroy everyone who gets in their path. Generally, there are two kinds of vampire novels – ones where the vampires are outsiders that need to be destroyed (Salem's Lot, Dracula) and stories told from the perspective of the vampires (Interview with a Vampire, Twilight, The Addiction). In the latter case, the vampires are usually haunted or beautiful or guilt-ridden. They are rarely scary. Poppy Z. Brite writes the latter without forgetting that vampires are predators. Instead of sympathy, the reader feels revulsion and terror. Putting us in the heads of the vampires only makes us feel trapped. It's a powerful book that stays with you decades after you finish reading.

Definitely buy a copy of Lost Souls. It’s also on Audible.

Poppy Z. Brite is cool. He’s currently working on a book about Stephen King. Contribute to his Patreon.

Also, if you’ve read his horror books, check out Liquor, the first in a trilogy about New Orleans chefs.