Lost Souls
by Poppy Z. Brite
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Book Reviews of Lost Souls
Book Review: Brite strides boldly where Anne Rice fears to tread
Summary: 5 Stars
Lost Souls, Poppy Z. Brite's first novel, may be shockingly perverse to those not already immersed in the darker waters of fiction and life, but with its lurid omnisexuality wrapped in a blood-encased poultice of horror, it stands as a mesmerizing achievement, lending ever newer blood to the world of vampirology. While some may chide Brite's vampires for being so awfully unlike the debonair charmer Count Dracula or even the grossly disfigured Nosferatu, herein actually lies the strength of the novel. In Brite's world, good and evil do not exist, and if they do, they are oftentimes quite difficult to tell apart. There is not one character in this entire novel who is even within earshot of the bells of Normality, no one whom in all truth could be called a hero in the traditional sense. This is a world encased in darkness; even the sunlight filters through halfheartedly, as if it realizes it is just fooling itself when it pretends it can wash away the darkness with its feeble rays of light. The characters are exquisite yet deeply tainted, some by blood, some by drink and drugs, and some by the shiftier shadows that like to entomb the mind of man insidiously and secretly. If nothing else, one cannot say these characters are forgettable. We first meet Christian, a centuries-old vampire running a bar in New Orleans. One Mardi Gras night, a trio of his brethren come into the bar and entrance him with their modern ways of dalliance, unrestrained pleasure-seeking, and vitality. Christian is both literally and figuratively cold and dead inside, but the vampire trio are electric and unrestrained. Twig and Molochai are almost childlike in their recklessness, but Zilla is something special. His mysterious chartreuse-enlivened eyes do all but breathe fire through their entrancingly hypnotic gazes. A young girl in the bar that night falls under Zilla's spell, and many months after Zilla and his friends have left New Orleans, a baby is born. The baby grows up in Maryland, knowing he is different from everyone else; his name is Nothing, and at fifteen he sets off on a journey of self-discovery. His first destination is Missing Mile, North Carolina, home of the underground musical group Lost Souls?, but he meets up, as if by fate, with Zilla's band of marauding vampires and finds the family he has been aching for all his life. He and Zilla share their bodies as well as their feasts of blood, and Nothing has little trouble adjusting to the life he knows he was born to lead; he is a vampire. Steve and Ghost, the members of Lost Souls?, enter the picture because of Nothing's strong identification with their music. Ghost is the most remarkable character in the novel, a young man blessed with a gift of seeing into the minds of others, both alive and dead; his gift can be a curse at times, though, because he knows the pain of everyone. Steve is his best friend, a perpetual drunk with a bad temper that caused him to lose the one girl he had ever loved. All the roads of each character meet in Missing Mile, and the events and tragedies set in motion lead the reader from there back to New Orleans, ending in a climax I found remarkably well done.
Poppy Z. Brite is something of an acquired taste. The sexuality of her characters is strikingly extreme, and Zilla's band of vampires are particularly uncaring in their choice of partners; the life essence can be found in a fluid other than blood, and these creatures of the night delight in sharing themselves with each other as they race through life on a perpetual search for kicks. Drug abuse runs rampant among everyone in these pages, and the act of rape is consigned to one of those who comes closest to being a good guy. As disturbing as the intense erotic aspect of Brite's writing may be, however, it lies at the core of her vampiric creations. Zilla and his gang have no morals, no code of honor, no feelings whatsoever; there is not a trace of immorality found among them because they are completely amoral. Brite raises the world of vampirism out of its traditional trappings, and therein lies the magic that sets Brite apart as a shockingly new, amazingly effective voice in modern horror.
Book Review: Vampires - Hard Core & Goth - Powerful Prose!
Summary: 4 Stars
Molochai, Twig and Zillah, three androgynous Goth vagabonds all resembling rock stars, roll into New Orleans ready for Mardi Gras. Drunk on Chartreuse, their mouths full of candy, they make their way to a tiny bar with stained glass windows in the French Quarter. CHRISTIANS says the sign above the door. Christian, the bartender and owner, is a four hundred year-old vampire. Molochai, Twig and Zillah, younger by a few centuries, are also vampires. A thin adolescent girl, pretty Jessy, had long been waiting for the three, or their like. Her dream is to become one of them. She doesn't get her wish though. Unlike the myths, vampires are not made by a bite from the undead. They are born, just like humans. Impregnations are few and far between, and the women who carry them in their wombs, (frequently human women), usually die in childbirth. Bad lead vamp Zillah, with the gorgeous green eyes, takes a special liking to Jessy. After the evening is over, he leaves her alive and carrying his child.
Fast forward fifteen years, Zillah and Jessy's son, "Nothing," is living with his adoptive parents in a Maryland suburb, wondering why he feels so different from everyone else. Alienated and terribly lonely, he runs away from home and is picked-up hitching by the ever wandering Zillah, Twig and Molochai. Now he's found! "Lost Souls" chronicles his decline into his father's world and the inevitable loss of his soul. The three vamp sidekicks spend their lives going from place to place - seeing everything - cities and countryside, drinking blood from various sources, leaving scenes of carnage behind, and then turning around and beginning again - taking different routes which lead them back to the same cities. Drunk and/or drugged, these dark hedonists always come out unscathed, unlike their victims. Now they head for Missing Mile, NC, the home of Nothing's favorite musicians, the Lost Souls.
Steve and Ghost are the vocalist and guitarist who make-up the Lost Souls. Nothing loves them, although he has never met them - he has only listened to their sound on tape. Ghost, the grandson of a backwoods' wise woman was born with a caul over his face. Ethereal in body and spirit, he is gifted with the sight, and is a truly decent human being - a man with soul. Steve, on the other hand has a ways to go before he becomes a mensch. As to the state of his soul - it's still up in the air. The musicians meet-up with the preternatural cohorts in a club in Missing Mile, where Nothing at last gets to meet his idols.
Ghost and Steve want to save Nothing from himself and, ultimately, his fate. Steve's former girlfriend, Ann, winds up on the road with the monsters, pursued by our rock star heroes. The battle for the lost souls reaches its dramatic finale when Ms. Brite brings everyone together in The Big Easy.
I was surprised at the quality of Poppy Brite's writing. It's good! Don't ask me why I expected otherwise. Her narrative is taut and her descriptive passages are at times lyrical, and always original. Her weakness lies in her characters' development. They are one dimensional. Ghost is wonderful, all goodness and light - but too angelic to be real. He is the shining heart of the novel. Steve, who is almost always on drugs and booze, is never really developed, although we get a sense that he is salvageable. And the vampires are dark cartoon-type characters - but maybe that's how vampires are supposed to be. They, and the vampire wannabe groupies, are all pale as corpses and dress in black, with black lipstick and mascara - a la Goth.
Poppy Brite paints a picture of today's society through Goth eyes - surreal to say the least. If you're a fan of horror fiction, (the kind with gore and violence), or are into the funky and unusual, "Lost Souls" merits your attention. I enjoyed it very much
JANA
Book Review: a tragic tale with a new twist on the vampire legend
Summary: 4 Stars
Firstly, I should say that this book is a great read, especially towards the end of the novel, where it is less aimless and more structured in plot. It was hard for me to put it down and keep from finishing it. The book is aptly named "Lost Souls" because it is a very tragic tale, with all of the main characters and some ancillary ones "lost" to some degree or another.
To me, the genius of the novel was the characterization of Nothing, one of the main characters in the story. He's born in tragic circumstances, unloved, and therefore seeking love and acceptance, without a purpose in life, without family, and very amoral. He's one of the tragically lost characters of the novel, and, as Ghost does, who is another character of the novel, you can't but to feel sorry for Nothing, to have empathy with him.
But all of the characters, as I've mentioned, are lost in some way: Ann (tragically bounced about as an object of lust and love), Steve (unable to find himself in life), Ghost (unable to fit in due to his "gift"), Nothing, whom I've mentioned in detail, and even the vampires themselves. Christian, one of the vampires, is, like the humans in the story, lost and alone - which is probably why he has such a connection with Nothing. The other vampires who follow Zillah, the leader, are lost too, aimlessly living a life of blood, sensuality, and hedonism.
There is a new take on the vampire mythology in this book, which I found to be very, very interesting. There are different types of vampires described in the novel, each with their own characteristics. It makes it a very unique read.
The style of writing is very vivid, very descriptive, and simply quite beautiful to read - except for the lame comparison of semen to altars. It's just weird, to me. Yeah, I can see a spiritual connection of sorts, but not in the way it's expressed in the words of the author.
The only reason I didn't give this a five out of five review is the amoral, sexual imagery that is depicted in the novel. It reminds me of the latter novels by Anne Rice. Like her novels, there is this complete focus (99.9 %) on male homosexuality - no, or little, lesbianism, which I find ironic coming from women writers. Every man is gay or bisexual. It's like revisionist history applied to human sexuality. It's pure fantasy, just like vampires, and completely unrealistic. Not every man is gay or bisexual. It's unrealistic and annoying to read. It's a dream, wishful thinking, nothing more. The sexual imagery is degenerate and amoral. What else can you say about sex between men and boys and incest? Is this normal now? The other thing that detracts from the novel regarding the sexual imagery is how it follows, as does Anne Rice, a formula for a modern day vampire character: the must be male and, invariably, gay, or at least bisexual, and completely amoral. They've reduced characterization to a stereotype, a caricature. The sexual imagery is portrayed not in a tragic light, but as "normal." All sexuality in novels like this is so extremely overt, in your face like a car crash. Nothing is left to the imagination. There is no subtlety. It's about as sensual as porn or a street walker.
I would describe this novel as something like neo-Gothic. Like Gothic novels, it has the grotesque (vampires, extreme sexuality, etc.), loss (Nothing's youth and innocence, Steve's love loss, etc.), death and murder, madness (the vampires, especially Zillah), vengeance (Steve's vengeance on the vampires), hedonism, and other dark imagery. It's definitely worth reading if you can get past the extreme, albeit unrealistic, images of male sexuality and incest.
Book Review: Unique, well-written, but...
Summary: 3 Stars
As a fan of Storm Constantine and other writers in this vein (pun not intended), I was recommended to PZB's works multiple times. I finally decided to start with the first-written, although others warned me that it was not her best. And it was definitely interesting. This was definitely a new take on the vampire renaissance heralded by Anne Rice and others. These vamps are dark but not romantically so, decadent but not admirably so, and brutally cruel. I was wowed by the writing style, which was lush (not overly so) and yet very engaging; the uniqueness of the vampires, who truly are a different species (with their own subspecies); the blatant inclusion of homoerotic material that other writers often only touch upon glancingly, if at all (and which is very satisfyingly fulfilled here).
The problem? I hate the characters.
Call me jaded, or maybe just too old to understand. Nothing was very much a nothing, to me. I couldn't get into his teenaged angst---which, granted, had some real basis in his being "different". But some of his angst had to do with things like, "My parents want me to clean my room because I haven't bathed in days and it reeks." Or, "Nobody understands me except the singer on this underground tape I got from my friends, so I'm going to run away from home to find him." It's really hard for me to find sympathy with those kinds of laments, even though I remember feeling the same way when I was a teenager (well, I had no problem with baths). I guess it bothers me because I'm an adult, now, and this sort of pointless whining just seems stupid, not angsty.
I also hated Zillah, who's a psychopath but not even a particularly interesting one---just one who seems to be blessed with a kind of bizarre magic that helps him attract weaker souls and pervert them into strangeness or stupidity. He does this to every female character in the story; one of the women, Ann, was a strong and interesting character until she has a liaison with Zillah. Then her brains and strength just seem to... vanish. The other female character meets the same fate, earlier in the novel, but she didn't really start out as a strong character (her motivations were completely unclear), so I didn't really mind in her case. She was too uninteresting for me to care about her---which is the problem for most of the characters in the story.
I do like some of the characters. Christian, for example, is a none-too-subtle poke at the more romanticized, old-worldish vamps of other authors like Rice; he too falls under Zillah's spell, and is basically dragged into the more crude, brutal, modern vamp world PZB has created here. His corruption is actually interesting to watch. Ghost is fascinating---although his devotion to his uber-macho, rapist buddy Steve just leaves me cold. It's as if a subtle theme of this story is Why Smart People Do Really Dumb Things.
Still, I'll definitely recommend this story, if only for its fresh and original take on vampirism. Its takes on teen angst, relationship abuse, friendship, good/evil, etc., are more common.
Book Review: A Pleasant Surprise
Summary: 4 Stars
When I was in middle school I worshiped this book. I had an old paper back copy that my friends and I traded around in an ever increasing circle where we wrote our own personal commentaries in the margins and highlighted parts we thought were particularly exciting or naughty. I thought Nothing was the voice of my gothed out alter ego, Zillah the hottest thing to hit vampire fiction since Lestat and I searched pages over and over again for irrefutable proof that might side on my argument that I bet Steve and Ghost had Done It. In short - I read the book but never really read it.
Then awhile ago I splurged and bought the 10th anniversary issue that came at quite a hefty price tag and promptly sat it on my shelf without so much as a glance at what was inside. Gradually I came to realize that I was afraid of this book - I was afraid that in opening it I would come face to face with my teenage self and realize just how much we had grown apart. I was afraid that the book that I had treasured so long might in fact not be any good. And then a few days ago, for apparently no real reason at all, I decided to go ahead and face my fears and reread the damnable, questionable and formidable Lost Souls again.
Much to my surprise . . . I liked it. Lost Souls is not a towering example of literary merit, but it doesn't have to be. It's got pizazz and it's got heart and that takes it a hell of a long way in my book. Yes, there were a few minutes where I found myself rolling my eyes and the prose but they were so few and far between that I found myself rereading chapters, convinced I must be missing something guffaw worthy somewhere.
The plot is at times both simple and refreshingly different - if you were secretly born a monster and given up for adoption would you be able to find a way to avoid the fate genetically encoded into since birth? And if you did decide to be a monster where would it take you? Could someone really come to accept being a psychopath and a serial killer? What had so fascinated me as a teenager with its slick, hypnotically shiny descriptions of people and places gradually grew into something that now terrifies me as an adult as I made my way through it's pages.
So what do I think all these years later? Has Lost Souls really always been this well crafted book, quietly waiting by the way side for someone other than mall goths to discover it? I think perhaps this book's greatest tragedy is that it's only found its niche in one demographic and that it's appeal as a solid piece of horror fiction is great enough that if most were willing to take the character's flowery prose with the grain of salt it deserves they would see that this really is a very fine, entertaining addition to the horror shelf in any collection.