Vampire Stories from the American South Book

Bad book. Bad, bad book.

Apparently, this was the opening in what was supposed to be a series of regionally-centered short stories about vampires. For all I know, the series worked out just fine. But from the evidence of this book, the editors didn't care very much about it.

The first insult is the introduction, which trots out every known cliché about the South in two pages. Tied to the past, wrapped up in the civil war, plantations and magnolias. And yet, somehow, the introduction manages not to mention the single most important writer of Southern vampire tales. Anne Rice is only name-checked in a single story, and there only tangentially. Piss-ant meanness.

The stories are slight, badly edited, conventional, trite, and almost exclusively from the book's recent past. Southern Blood was published in 1997 and 8 of the 12 stories are from the 1990s. These are almost uniformly the worst--there's one exception--and, despite being written on so much tradition conventional in the extreme. It is embarrassing how many typographical and printer errors there are--several in almost every story, including the lead-in editorial comments, which is also mis-printed once--and this given that the 12 stories barely go past 200 pages, and that's only because the type is large (and ugly), the page lay-out using too much white space (and black borders!)

The book looks like a vanity project, and I am surprised Greenberg's name is associated with it at all. (He doesn't even contribute a dedication, making me wonder what his contribution was.) For no particular reason, the stories are listed in the contents under the state with which they are associated--Louisiana, Georgia, etc.--but these seem randomly assigned. Perhaps the reason is to remind the reader that these stories are Southern in some sense, since the regional connection is hard to notice in most of the stories, inconsequential.

Carpetbagger is a mediocre story about a Yankee woman who is turned into a vampire by a Confederate sympathizer and saved by a creole who thinks of even white Southerners as invaders. It is set in contemporary times, though, as if 100-plus years had not passed since the Civil War.

"Claim-Jumpin' Woman, You Got a Stake in my Heart," manages to keep some narrative drive--remarkably rare in this collection--but is told in the single-most irritating voice I have read in years, a mock hale-fellow-well-met Ivy League-ese of the forties.

"The Silver Coffin" is the oldest of these published in 1939. It's the story I was after when I got this collection, because the Weird Tales magazine in which it appeared is ridiculously expensive. The story suffers from "weird Tales" preference for atmosphere over action. It, too, is told as one long monologue and is tame in the extreme.

"Like a Pilgrim to the Shrine" is 'The Devil Came Down to Georgia" with vampires, but set in Florida; it is badly overwritten, given the lack of suspense, and the dialog laughable.

"The Cursed Damozel" is one of three worthy stories in the collection. By Manly Wade Wellman, it reflects his intense knowledge of southern folklore and elicits a greater range of psychology in his characters than any of the stories from 50 years later.

"The Scent of Magnolias" has a ridiculous set up, is boring, and strains to make connections with the Southern environment through its most clichéd aspects: magnolias, oppressive heat.

"The Flame" is the only worthy story from the 1990s, focusing as it does on the victim rather than the vampire, and mostly avoiding beyond a twice (thrice, three-hundredth) told tale.

"God-Less Men" is a ridiculous study in stereotypes, most of them, oddly Western rather than Southern. (It's set in Texas.)

Blood Kin is definitely southern Gothic, but is also just a series of clichés running into each other.

Carrion Comfort is the third worthy story. (It's from 1982.) I can see why Dan Simmons wanted to expand this into a novel: there's much left out here, such as motivations, and the middle third is an action story, not a weird one. But his novel was so ridiculously bloated the original short story still looks better by comparison.

Blessed By His Dying Tongue ends up undermining any point i may have had--which wasn't much, given the copious plot holes. But it has Elvis, so it's Southern.

She Only Goes Out at Night is a clichéd take on Manly Wade Wellman themes--which, you know, why bother, since Wellman is already represented in the collection?--but, grading on a curve, is not so bad since it came out in 1956. But it's also not any good.

So, skip this. Read Wellman, because Wellman is good. Find Dan Simmons's short story somewhere else. (And avoid the novel.) Nothing else here is worth hunting down.

Tones: Gothic Romantic Contemporary Mundane
Themes: Family Life, North vs South, New vs. Old,

I think there were just 2 stories I wasn't crazy about. Though the 2nd was monotonous. It Felt too long for a so called Short story. (They should have just made it into one of those 100 page books you buy to read at the beach.

I closing I'll just say my favorite was : Like a Pilgrim to the Shrine by Brian Hodge

My FULL review Story by Story is here

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