Vampires Are Us: Understanding Our Love Affair with the Immortal Dark Side
The author of Drawing Down the Moon offers a "literate, imaginative, and just plain fascinating” exploration of the enduring allure of vampires (Whitley Strieber, author of The Hunger).
 
Author and NPR correspondent Margot Adler found herself newly drawn to vampire novels while sitting vigil at her dying husband’s bedside. Intrigued by the way this ever-evolving myth lets us contemplate mortality, she embarked on a years-long journey of reading hundreds vampire novels—from teen to adult, from gothic to modern, from detective to comic. She began to see just how each era creates the vampires it needs. Dracula, an Eastern European monster, was the perfect vehicle for 19th-century England’s fear of outsiders and of disease seeping in through its large ports.
 
In 1960s America, the television show Dark Shadows gave us the morally conflicted vampire struggling against his own predatory nature, who still enthralls us today. From Bram Stoker to Ann Rice; from vampire detective thrillers to lesbian vampire fiction; and from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Twilight and True Blood, Vampires Are Us explores the issues of power, politics, morality, identity, and even the fate of the planet that show up in vampire novels today. Perhaps, Adler suggests, our blood is oil, perhaps our prey is the planet. Perhaps vampires are us.
"1117024071"
Vampires Are Us: Understanding Our Love Affair with the Immortal Dark Side
The author of Drawing Down the Moon offers a "literate, imaginative, and just plain fascinating” exploration of the enduring allure of vampires (Whitley Strieber, author of The Hunger).
 
Author and NPR correspondent Margot Adler found herself newly drawn to vampire novels while sitting vigil at her dying husband’s bedside. Intrigued by the way this ever-evolving myth lets us contemplate mortality, she embarked on a years-long journey of reading hundreds vampire novels—from teen to adult, from gothic to modern, from detective to comic. She began to see just how each era creates the vampires it needs. Dracula, an Eastern European monster, was the perfect vehicle for 19th-century England’s fear of outsiders and of disease seeping in through its large ports.
 
In 1960s America, the television show Dark Shadows gave us the morally conflicted vampire struggling against his own predatory nature, who still enthralls us today. From Bram Stoker to Ann Rice; from vampire detective thrillers to lesbian vampire fiction; and from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Twilight and True Blood, Vampires Are Us explores the issues of power, politics, morality, identity, and even the fate of the planet that show up in vampire novels today. Perhaps, Adler suggests, our blood is oil, perhaps our prey is the planet. Perhaps vampires are us.
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Vampires Are Us: Understanding Our Love Affair with the Immortal Dark Side

Vampires Are Us: Understanding Our Love Affair with the Immortal Dark Side

by Margot Adler
Vampires Are Us: Understanding Our Love Affair with the Immortal Dark Side

Vampires Are Us: Understanding Our Love Affair with the Immortal Dark Side

by Margot Adler

eBook

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Overview

The author of Drawing Down the Moon offers a "literate, imaginative, and just plain fascinating” exploration of the enduring allure of vampires (Whitley Strieber, author of The Hunger).
 
Author and NPR correspondent Margot Adler found herself newly drawn to vampire novels while sitting vigil at her dying husband’s bedside. Intrigued by the way this ever-evolving myth lets us contemplate mortality, she embarked on a years-long journey of reading hundreds vampire novels—from teen to adult, from gothic to modern, from detective to comic. She began to see just how each era creates the vampires it needs. Dracula, an Eastern European monster, was the perfect vehicle for 19th-century England’s fear of outsiders and of disease seeping in through its large ports.
 
In 1960s America, the television show Dark Shadows gave us the morally conflicted vampire struggling against his own predatory nature, who still enthralls us today. From Bram Stoker to Ann Rice; from vampire detective thrillers to lesbian vampire fiction; and from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Twilight and True Blood, Vampires Are Us explores the issues of power, politics, morality, identity, and even the fate of the planet that show up in vampire novels today. Perhaps, Adler suggests, our blood is oil, perhaps our prey is the planet. Perhaps vampires are us.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781609259525
Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser
Publication date: 04/17/2020
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 256
File size: 951 KB

About the Author

Margot Adler had been involved with Earth-based spirituality, Wicca, and Paganism since 1972. She was the author of Drawing Down the Moon, the classic study of Paganism and Goddess Spirituality, as well as Heretic’s Heart: A Journey Through Spirit and Revolution. In her mundane life, she was a 35-year veteran correspondent for NPR whose pieces regularly air on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition. She passed away in 2014. www.margotadler.com.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Part 1 Mirror, Mirror

Mortality 5

Power 17

Power and Politics 21

The Persecuted Other 29

The Struggle to Be Moral 35

Spirituality 45

Part 2 Margot's Annotated Bibliography of Vampire Fiction

Detective Vampire Fiction 65

Presidential Vampire Thrillers 75

Horror: Vampires as Pure Evil, or Close to It 79

Humorous Novels for Adults-Light, Frivolous, and Fun 85

Young Adult Fiction 91

Nerdy, Geeky Vampires 91

Vampires at School 96

Hogwarts for Vampires, or Vampires at Vampire School 101

Coming-of-Age Vampire Novels 103

Young Adult Romance 113

Adult Romance 117

Regional Vampire Novels 131

Vampires as Other Species, Vampires in Science Fiction, Vampirism as Disease 137

Supernatural Fantasy 147

Alternate History 157

Vampire Hunters Since Buffy 169

The Classics 177

Anne Rice Classics 189

Novels in the Classic Tradition 197

Unique, Odd, and Unclassifiable Vampire Novels 203

Lesbian Vampire Fiction 209

Anthologies of Vampire Short Stories 211

Nonfiction Vampire Books of Interest 215

The Best 219

The List: A Complete Listing of the Books 223

Afterword 239

Acknowledgments 241

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