Thoughts on This is Not a Vampire Story, by Simon Doyle

This is Not a Vampire Story by Simon Doyle

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What a beautiful and heartbreaking story, of a love that lasted a lifetime, and perhaps beyond. Victor and James find each other in 1949 Ireland, a time when to be queer was illegal and to be caught, mean jail, or worse.

Their love persisted. Everything changed on one dark night when Victor, James, and their friends, Giuseppe, Danny, and Michael, explored a drifting abandoned ship. Out of the dark, Victor means Amaral and he is changed. The word vampire is not used in the novel ("this is not a vampire story"). Even so, Victor becomes something akin, perpetually young, needing blood for sustenance. After a tragedy that haunts Victor for the rest of his life, he leaves so as not to repeat it with James.

And returns, years later, drawn by the love that transformed his life and James' life.

This is a love story. Beautifully written, dark and light, and quite wonderful, and heartbreaking.

Highly Recommended.



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