As a member of the Twilight generation, I’ve gone through some phases with vampires. I was very much #TeamJacob, then decided that the books were the worst thing ever written, did an about-face and decided they were decent for a YA Romance – and not any more problematic than a bunch of genre romances. Now my partner and have enjoyed re-watching the first Twilight movie with wine, which is a fabulous date night. Seriously, that movie is so bad it swings around to good again.
My adult self has been interested in how how vampirism has long been tied with queerness. This stretches back to the original ‘big three’ of vampire stories – The Vampyre, Carmilla, and Dracula – all of which are super queer, and written by queer authors. Actually, there’s a really great bit of history on how an Indonesian volcanic eruption in 1815 brought us both Frankenstein and The Vampyre, which established the atmosphere of vampire novels that has persisted as the dominant aesthetic to this day. I … actually haven’t read any of those three, which is a mistake I plan on rectifying at some point in the next few years.
Vampires have continued to have strong elements of explicit and implicit queerness (especially the men, but that’s mostly because female vampires got ignored until relatively recently). There’s the feminine aesthetics of many male vampires, homoerotic tension as a common plot point, and the biting of the neck as a symbol of forbidden sexual desire. A foundational tenet of horror literary analysis is that trends in horror reflect the fears of society. For example, Godzilla is a reaction to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The tradition and legacy of vampires is queer, even if not every individual story is. Thank you for coming to this Ted Talk, adapted from one of the lectures I give in my high school Speculative Fiction elective.
Anyways, here are five queer vampire stories I’ve enjoyed, as well as five that I’m excited to read!
Recommendations
- Heart of Stone by Johannes T Evans: this may have ruined all other vampire love stories for me. Soft and quiet, without any of the campy pastiche that vampire romances can have.
- The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean: this takes some liberties with vampires, but uses them as an exploration of the patriarchy and the ethics of raising a child who must kill sentient life to survive. This book lingers with me after years. One of my favorite stories about parenthood in speculative fiction.
- Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice: a turning point in vampire fiction to allow them to be protagonists. It’s often pitched as a gay love story featuring a toxic couple who raises a vampiric kid. That is a horrible description and doesn’t reflect the book at all, which is actually an examination of the horrors of immortality.
- Hungerstone by Kat Dunn: set during the rising industrialism of England, this take on Carmilla explores the lack of female agency at the time, and does a phenomenal job of depicting a drug addled haze. I do think my interpretation varies heavily from what the author intended, especially with the ending. However, its dark and fucked up and has a lot to love.
- The Route of Ice and Salt by José Luis Zárate: this translated horror story has a lot of hallmarks of Mexican speculative fiction. It follows a captain transporting Dracula’s coffins on his ship and is a psychological exploration of the dangers of queer repression. As a content warning, our main character is not a good person, and there’s a lot of violations of consent and other transgressions.
The Ones I Hope to Love (beyond the original three)
- No Such Thing as Duty by Lara Elena Donnelly: this is a Neon Hemlock novella that I had planned to read for my July Novella Readathon, but never ended up picking it up. It’s set during World War I following a spy sent to Romania after a Tuberculosis diagnosis. I don’t love everything Neon Hemlock puts out, but I’ve never disliked anything they’ve published either.
- Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite: this seems to be in the vein of fucked up vampire stories I’ve enjoyed, and has achieved acclaim in both popular and critical circles. I understand that it traces a descent into insanity that I’m particularly excited for.
- Tapeworm by AP Thayler: this is a relatively new release that follows a man recently separated from his wife who ends up at a very cult-y retreat. The blurb makes me think he gets turned into a monster slowly as the price he pays for exploring his queer sexuality? Not sure, but seems really cool.
- Blood, Flesh, and Magic by Viano Oniomoh: I’m … not in love with the cover, if I’m being honest. However, I’ve been wanting to try an Oniomoh book for a while, so why not this one? Looks like a fun little enemies to lovers romance, and I’m here for it.
- Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors by Gordon Greenberg and Steven Rosen: an off-Broadway play that I don’t think I’m every going to be able to see, but I hope desperately to. If nothing else, you should look at their promotional shorts from the US run. It is campy as hell.
