Lost Souls
by Poppy Z. Brite
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Book Reviews of Lost Souls
Book Review: Poppy Z Brite: Not so Bright.
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm an avid fan of Anne Rice's "The Vampire Chronicles." This being a well-known fact among my friends, a couple of them had recommended Poppy Z Brite's work to me, thinking that I would enjoy it. When browsing through this site in search of a novel of her's, "Lost Souls" seemed the one I was most likely to favor. Why? Simply because the topic was vampires, and that is a topic which intrigues me. So that's the one I decided upon. Now, the character of Zillah transfixed me immediately. I even went so far as to compare him to my beloved Lestat, my favorite Ricean vampire. And I'm not going to provide a synopsis on each character, but I will say that I think the book's true potential was in the character of Zillah. And so by killing him in the novel, Brite killed the potential. In fact, the entire ending kills the rest of the book. I don't think Brite is necessarily a poor writer. I think the book was well-written, most of the characters believable, and the dialogue pretty. And her concepts are not conventional, which I like. But she seemed to place the supreme character value on the young boy Nothing, rather than on Zillah or even Christian, another elusive and enigmatic figure in the novel. And she made the mistake of taking on two of, what I will term, "party perspectives." We go from Christian, to Ghost and Steve, to Nothing, Zillah, Molochai, and Twig. Which works...multiple perspectives aren't bad, if used wisely. (Rice did it effectively in Queen of the Damned, going between far more characters than Brite does in this novel), but she took both parties sides', if you will. She made and ending that was meant to be unsettling in its unexpectedness and seeming indifference, but IS in fact unsettling only because it is inconclusive and boring. She left it open-ended, which is fine (hell, it's expected, we're dealing with vampires here) and there were indeed some implied tragic aspects. However, she tried to make a balance between seeming good and seeming evil. She attempted to create an ending where the "good" guys and the "bad" guys could both "win." And that, in my opinion, is never effective. Or at least I've never seen a case in which it has been. She made Zillah the central bad character, Ghost (and Steve, in a way) the central good characters, and Nothing the main confused, able to sway character. But they all (with the exception of Ghost, perhaps) lack substance. Zillah had inherent charm because he was beguilingly evil, the archetype of a vampire, in that respect. But the guy had charisma too. But Nothing lacked much. Had she developed said characters more fully, making them worth our concern, the ending might have been favorable, and in fact redeemed the rest of the book, had the rest been utter garbage.Book Review: Never trust 5-star reviews.
Summary: 2 Stars
I'd picked this book up based on the glowing reviews I'd read; today, as I finished reading it, I wished I'd read the 4-star and below reviews here on Amazon before I ever bought the thing.
Once you get past the prologue, the idea seemed like it had some real merit. However, as the pages wore on and the plot was bogged down by annoying teenage angst, (I'm not far past those years myself, so what does that say?) I felt myself losing interest in the characters' plights. I didn't really have sympathy for anyone except Ghost, and even then I didn't care for him too much.
Something about the writing style also turned me off the book a bit. Too flowery, I guess; there are only so many times you can use "spider" as part of a verb or an adjective. There was definitely a fixation on the various flavors of saliva, which, for me, comes across as more silly than erotic. Bits of the dialogue also sounded too eloquent to be a character speaking -- it was more an extension of the narrative. Also seemed like instead of painting a whole picture of a person or place, the descriptions focused on only a few things. (Kudzu, dust, hair, sweat, dark roads, iron railings, that sort of thing.)
I can't really say much about the Goth culture, since it was before my time and outside my interest, but from what I could tell, it sounded like more of a caricature. According to this book, all you need to know is that everyone is stick-thin, has razors scars and crazy dye jobs, wears heavy make-up and black clothes, smokes clove cigarettes, and listens to mostly Bauhaus and maybe some Cure or REM. While I'm sure there were people like that, that description doesn't do the then decade-old genre much justice. (Mostly goes for the music; we get three or four bands, but apparently there were dozens by the time the story takes place.)
I won't go into the incest or bi/homosexuality, except that it struck me as odd that the only 'normal' relationship ended with rape, or, in the prologue, pedophilia. Apparently there's no such thing as a platonic relationship, either. If everyone wasn't hooking up with everyone in the predominantly male cast, then it wouldn't stand out so awkwardly.
And I thought it was funny when Ghost said something about having the punctuation at the end of his band's name to keep it from sounding silly. "Lost Souls?" had the opposite effect for me.
All in all, it read like a teenager's first novel. Better quality than many, I'm sure, but still not something I'd go out of my way to read. If you want to give this book a shot, don't go in with a cynical mind or high expectations.
Book Review: Gratuitous, indulgent, and wholly enjoyable to the right kind of reader. Strongly recommended
Summary: 4 Stars
Fifteen-year-old Nothing runs away from his adoptive home and falls in with three vampires, one of whom is his unwitting father. In a haze of drugs, sex, and blood drinking, Nothing is drawn closer to New Orleans and the climactic events that will reveal his past and determine his future. Lost Souls is indulgent and gratuitous to the extreme, which will either delight or disgust the reader. Personally, I loved it--and though I preferred the concept to the actual plot, I found Lost Souls visceral, darkly intriguing, and difficult to put down. It's a bit over the top and perhaps not a piece of "great" literature, but I heartily recommend it.
To be quite honest, Lost Souls feels like a combination of the self-indulgent, gratuitous content of fan fiction and the skill and editing of a published book. It is an playground of sin: lush sexuality and frequent homosexual relationships, incest, teenage sexuality, unapologetic amorality, angst, plentiful violence and blood drinking, drug use, goth kids, punk kids, rock bands, vampires, and New Orleans, all of it so gratuitous that it nearly become an art form. It's over the top and hardly subtle, yet Brite writes well. Her prose is sometimes florid, but it is evocative, visceral, and as lush as the content. She creates a cast of vivid, intriguing characters and weaves their disparate lives into a single story. Sadly, the plot veers away at the end of the book, doing a disservice to one character and straying too far from Nothing and his family--but the story is often intriguing and always competent, and it will keep the reader interested and engaged until the end.
Brite is not the most subtle or most gifted author, but she writes rich prose and a strong story. As a result, her book revels in gratuitous content rather than being dragged down by it. That may not appeal to everyone, and perhaps it prevents the book from being truly "great," but the reader who enjoys it will find Lost Souls a gleefully indulgent bit of wish fulfillment. Personally, I loved the combination of content and style, and I throughly enjoyed the book. I fell in love with the characters (especially Zillah), enjoyed the glut of blood and sex and angst, and found the prose so visceral that it triggered physical reactions. I did enjoy the premise more than the actual plot, and so I preferred the first half of the book. Nonetheless: Lost Souls is a wholly immoderate, indulgent vampire story, and my inner hedonist adored it. I recommend it to anyone attracted to the premise--pick it up and read the first couple of pages, and it will soon be apparent if this is the sort of book you'll love or hate.
Book Review: A great book.
Summary: 5 Stars
LOST SOULS was Poppy Z. Brite's first novel.
Sixteen years later, it is STILL a powerhouse novel.
Beginning during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, we are introduced to a few vampires. Christian is our main focus at this time, along with a young girl named Jesse. It isn't long after Jesse wants to `give herself' to a vampire that she is impregnated by another, which is as much of a death sentence as loving one. When a baby is born to one of the other vampires, Christian departs and leaves little `Nothing' on the doorstep of a human family, where he hopes the child will have a normal life.
Fast forward, about fifteen years later. Nothing is a teenager now, obsessed with the darkness of certain music and the taste of alcohol and cigarettes. He's like most angst teenagers; obsessed with find SOME sort of way out of his life. He's always known that he wasn't his parents' child, because some deep part of him just KNOWS that. It isn't until he finds a note that says `His name is Nothing' that he decides to run away, toward where his heart is calling him. His heart is calling him to Missing Mile, a place where two young musicians live and play their dark stories.
In Missing Mile, we meet Ghost and Steve, who created the band Lost Souls? With the two of them trying to launch their music career in bigger and better ways, they play at a local club called the Sacred Yew until they find something better to do.
But one particular night, Ghost has a vision, a vision of two decrepit twins, calling to him from whatever world they exist in. They warn of the darkness that is heading to his life.
It isn't long after that the vampires come to Missing Mile.
And behind them is Nothing, who yearns to be with more of `his' kind.
Poppy Z. Brite's style of storytelling is nothing short of amazing. Her style isn't like most writer's. While we normally see books through some kind of prism that lets us know we're just in a book, her writing engulfs us and draws us into her dark world. As we follow Steve, Ghost's and Nothing's journeys, we're drawn into the dark side of life (and unlife, since vampires aren't really of the living world.)
This is another Poppy Z. Brite book that I'll forever cherish. If I were suggesting someone to read Brite, I'd tell them to try LOST SOULS first. It'll set up DRAWING BLOOD, her next book, much, much better. I've found that people either love or hate her work, but thankfully, I'm of the variety that loves her writing and will continue to read whatever she puts out.
Five stars for LOST SOULS.
Book Review: I expected more.
Summary: 2 Stars
Spoiler Alert!I had heard several rave reviews about this novel so I read it and was disappointed. What you must keep in mind I am 29. I think had I read this book at 14 or so, I would have been enthralled with it.
It borrows liberally from superior works, most notably Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. There was a lot of extraneous expository writing that felt like a waste of time reading, overused adjectives (apparently everyone in Poppy Brite's world has "spidery" hands, smokes clove cigarettes, lives in proximity to kudzu trees). And of course it had the typical "let's kick some vampire ass" ending.
Lost Souls is almost entirely a landscape of young, beautiful, skinny, white males, mostly making out with each other or killing people in graphic detail. It just comes across more as titillation rather than trying to say something about the human condition or go beyond being entertainment in the same vein as rock videos. One reviewer mentioned it as being like fan-fiction, and I got that vibe as well. It also makes the fatal mistake of trying to make vampire rock stars, which is tantamount to trying to run a car on water instead of gas. It's a great idea if it could work, but alas, it never does.
The book also takes "Goth culture," for lack of a better term, a bit too seriously for it's own good. Besides the occasional sarcastic quip from Steve, the book doesn't acknowledge any of the complete absurdity of some of the situations described, the way a good "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode would. It is very much written for the serious, Marilyn Manson-listening, dressed-in-black set. It doesn't really try to transcend it's genre, so it's difficult to recommend such a book to anyone who doesn't fall into that category. Even then, I'm sure many self-proclaimed "Goths" would cringe at the thought of reading this.
That said, I will grudgingly give Brite some points for her additions/twists to the vampire myth (Mostly the pregnancy- vampire hybrid ideas - I can only hope they were of her own invention and I'm giving her credit justly) Ghost, I thought was particularly nicely rendered as a character. There were some interesting visual ideas (Christian as a roadside rose stand vendor comes to mind). I managed to make it to the end at least, and take the time to think enough about the book to give it a review, so I think that shows that I have a least a modicum of respect for it.
Bottom line- I wouldn't recommend it to readers older than 20-25, and who aren't already interested in vampire fiction.