Jax Garren, Stripped With The Vampire

[Ulysses]

Stripped with the Vampire

By Jax Garren

Four stars


Having been very disappointed with my last attempt at reading a contemporary vampire m/m novel (for reasons that were my own issues, not really reflections on the quality of the book), Jax Garren’s “Stripped with the Vampire” was a welcome diversion.

Garren has created a well-conceived vampire subculture that operates mostly without notice by the mortal world; and it is just part of a much larger immortal realm that exists under the radar of human awareness.

For some reason, Austin, Texas is a center for this immortal world, which frankly makes no sense (but hey, it’s her book, her world). Garren has also established the idea that there are good vampires and bad vampires. Good vampires have kept their souls, while the bad ones have no soul (and thus no moral compass), and act pretty much the way Dracula and his ilk have always acted.

One of the good guys is Charles Travert, a 300-year-old French-born vampire who makes his living as a highly skilled woodworker in Austin. Vince Pagano is his twenty-four year old ex-boyfriend, who Charlie took into his home as a teenager after he was kicked out of his home for being gay. The backstory is important, because it defines the flow of the emotional plotline. Charlie and Vince were only lovers for a year, five years earlier. At first Charlie was Vince’s protector and surrogate parent. Then, when Vince got a job as a stripper at nineteen, to earn his keep and be independent, he didn’t tell Charlie; Charlie dumped him.

The book kicks off with Vince getting a stripping gig at a private party, which turns out to be a party for a gang of soulless (bad) vampires, who intend to sacrifice him to an Aztec god. After a harrowing escape, Vince staggers back into Charlie’s life, because, well, Charlie’s the only vampire he knows.

Yeah, I know, it’s a little baroque, but it’s sort of a creative way to establish a gay romantic history without imitating Anne Rice. In many ways, as is true with every modern vampire novel (including my own), Anne Rice’s presence is there. How an author moves away from, while not abandoning the core premises of, Anne Rice’s seminal work in this genre is a key ingredient of any successful vamp romance (gay or straight).

At the heart of Charlie Travert’s existence is the fact that he has always kept his head down, remained on the fringes of the vampire world, in order to survive. Partly this is shyness, but the larger part is fear. It is his identity as a gay man, not as a vampire, that fuels this fear. It seems (quite logically) that the vampire world was just as homophobic 300 years ago as the straight world was—as one might have expected. So, unlike Louis or Lestat, Charlie suffers not just the existential angst of being a blood-sucking immortal, but the very practical fear of being burned at the stake as an abomination.

Vince, as an out-and-proud gay millennial, in spite of family rejection, has no concept of Charlie’s deep fear. This is the dynamic that drives the romantic story line, and it is very nicely handled, threading its way through all of the action that fills this substantial novel.

The action is crazy and not always entirely coherent, what with Aztec gods and witches and a veritable salad of Viking, Gothic and other ancient vampire histories swirling around in the chaos. But, in its own crazy way, it sort of makes sense. Garren gives us lots of quirky characters, vampire and mortal, each of them with a distinct worldview that colors the narrative. Ultimately the book is about vampires living in the modern world, trying to make a place in which they can live in harmony with the mortal majority (see what I did there?). Easier said than done, apparently. And that’s exactly why the book is so much fun.

Garren has more books in the Austin series planned. They will focus on the M/F relationships present in “Stripped with the Vampire,” and so are not of particular interest to me; but there’s no doubt they’ll be fun reads under Garren’s excellent management.