Rating: 
Summary: 2 Stars is Generous
Review: I really wanted to like this book. I tried to like it. I bought it because of the blips comparing it to "Confederacy of Dunces" (which is absurd) and also because it does have a pretty interesting "this looks to be entertaining" premise.
However, it was a frustrating one to get through. A few reasons: the main character is impossible to like (he spends most of the time whining...it gets old), most of the other characters are equally annoying and stereotypical, the wannabe-witty dialogue is anything but, and, worst of all, you just can't shake the notion that it could be pretty good.
Rating:
Summary: Promising idea, bad execution
Review: I thought the premise of the novel was cute - Fox even opens the book with quotes from Anne Rice and John Kennedy Toole - it would combine two excellent novels heavy on atmosphere and characterization and mix in some easy comedy. But I'm afraid it fails terribly. The writing is bad enough to be distracting and the comedy is nonexistent. I got the impression that Fox had the great idea one day and the book a week later. The descriptions of New Orleans rely solely on name-dropping of streets and businesses. No imagery, just the random scatter of adjectives and the occasional gut-wrenching simile. The dialect is nothing but generic heavy slang. Even Stephen King throws the occasional "Ayuh" into a character's dialogue. Just for amusement, here is my favorite terrible line from the novel - At the beginning of chapter 9 the protagonist is in mist form and is sucked into a street sweeper "If Jules'd had a mouth, this is what he would've screamed: 'Whoa whoa WHOA WHOA-HAAAAA!' Thankfully, he didn't have a mouth, or any other organs or limbs..." My foremost issue with that line is not the fact that the mouth is neither an organ nor a limb, but the overall hideous sentence structure. Unfortunately, that turns out to be typical. It's not the worst book - I actually finished it and it was good for mindless time-wasting, but I kept wincing at the terrible writing and was continually disappointed by the obvious plotlines and bland characterization. It's a shame that such a promising idea was wasted.
Rating:
Summary: Wait and see
Review: I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. The reference to "Confederacy of Dunces" is misleading; this is not a funny book. It is not, sad to say, even a FUN book.
In the end I realized that I cared nothing for the characters because the author failed to make them sympathetic - aside perhaps for the little cross-dressing vampire of whom it can be said was at least a bit interesting. There were so many ways this novel could have been much better by making Jules a much more interesting character - he is simply a whiny wimp. He quickly becomes a TIRESOME whiny wimp. There is no internal conflict in him, he simply whines until made to act by outside forces. By that time, the reader is pleading for a stop to the whining and for some sort of resolution. Unfortunately, the resolutions chosen by the author were ultimately unsatisfying to me.
Jules could have been a great character; given a sense of humour about his situation, or a bit of a hard edge (when pushed).
Unfortunately, he has neither.
He sits there, pretty much like a fat lump on a log, as the terribly stereotyped characters in the book torment him (Malice X? Please...) until he must act or die. This does nothing to endear him to the reader - and can lead to them wishing that perhaps staking him for good might at least end his whining.
I will, nonetheless, check out the second book in the series - although I will not buy it yet. I understand that this is a first-time author and he certainly shows he has talent. I hope that he takes some time to sit down and think about why people read escapist literature and why they become attached and loyal to a character. In my opinion, his first effort is lacking in the things that allow us to do so.
Rating: 
Summary: Lordy, folks, lighten UP!
Review: I've just finished this book, and it's a rip. It's neither as clumsily written as some of the other reviews would lead you to think (in passages, it amounts to an *hommage* to its acknowledged forebear, CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, and sometimes rises to the same headlong style) nor the grave social screed other readers describe. (I often wonder when reading reviews: did we read the same book?) Simply, it's one long misadventure, and like the larger-than-life Ignatius Reilly in DUNCES, Jules Duchon, obese vampire, is shoehorned out of a comfortable rut and confronted with one ghastly predicament after another. The stakes, you should pardon the expression, are life and death, and Fox manages to make the reader care what happens -- it's not just a comic diversion. But along the way, almost every cliche in vampire literature (and pulp thrillers generally) comes in for a spoof. If you transform into a mist, how exactly DO you cope with a stiff breeze? If you become a wolf, what are your feelings toward lady dogs? And if you're a vampire in overfed New Orleans, how the hell do you expect to end up looking like anyone but Paul Prudhomme? (Disappointed readers of the Yarbro Comte de Saint-Germain vampire series, which turned into a mass of repetitive and overwritten soft-pore corn, will especially appreciate the plus-size boff scenes. There are some things you should NOT pour in a vampire's hot tub!)After watching Anne Rice pull off one terrific novel and then grind out affectedly morbid, S&M-lite sequels on a lathe for years afterward, this was a long overdue guffaw.
Rating: 
Summary: The Anti-Rice of New Orleans Vampires
Review: If you like vampire tales, you just gotta love "Fat White Vampire Blues." Andrew Fox has written a fine and funny tale of vampires from the less elite and effete sections of The Big Easy. Not that I dislike Anne Rice's vampire tales, but after a while.... "Fat White Vampire Blues" is a b-movie of a book informed by pulp magazines, comic books, new age spiritualism, and, well, b-movies. The conclusion of the tale is a little unsatisfying, and Fox plays fast and furious with so many concepts of vampirism (both traditional and some his own creations) along the way that he leaves many unexplored in the effort to get his story wrapped up. Maybe that's not a bad thing. Jules could always return in a follow-up, and that wouldn't be a bad thing either. Even so, this book is just so much fun to read it's hard not to like it. As for any charges that the book is racist or homophobic ... give me a break. Methinks the reader doth protest too much.
Rating:
Summary: The quick Andrew Fox has fun with a lazy, fat white vampire!
Review: Jules Duchon is a New Orleans freelance cab driver and vampire. He drives a Cadillac, which comfortably accommodates his 450 pound bulk. For decades, Jules has been content to cruise the city, making meals of the occasional passenger or homeless person. Although often depressed and lonely, Jules consoles himself with pleasant memories and his collection of blues records and vintage pulp magazines. Jules' peaceful existence comes to an end the night he is confronted by angry African American vampire Malice X, who issues him an ultimatum-limit his prey to the white population or suffer dire consequences. Unable to comply, Jules is eventually forced by X's minions to flee New Orleans. His comic adventures in exile and his defiant return to his hometown to confront his nemesis provide the backdrop for the remainder of the novel. FAT WHITE VAMPIRE BLUES is hands down one of the funniest novels you'll ever read, deriving humor from its clueless protagonist, its colorful and varied supporting cast, and from the mores and attitudes of gaudy New Orleans culture. Fox has created the perfect comic character in Jules Duchon, whose sloth, prejudices, outmoded ideas, and general stupidity expose him to increasingly outrageous predicaments. Along the way, Fox wreaks havoc with the notion of vampires as sexy creatures of the night,portraying them as essentially human, limited by the emotions and worries we all face. Thus, instead of the smooth, confident Lestat, we have the inept, insecure Jules; instead of the frightening Claudia, we have the cross dressing Doodlebug. Where Rice's vampires are the masters of all they survey, Fox's have trouble mastering even their simplest of powers (Jules, for instance, cannot mesmerize his prey, he can only induce nausea.) Seemingly deriving inspiration from novels as diverse as John Kennedy Toole's CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, Anne Rice's INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, Michael Chabon's THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY, Christopher Golden's OF SAINTS AND SHADOWS, Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE, FAT WHITE VAMPIRE BLUES offers laughs on every page, even in the midst of harrowing action. Despite the fact that much of the humor is admittedly lowbrow, and that Fox's narrative exhibits many of the flaws endemic to any first novel, FAT WHITE VAMPIRE BLUES is a comic gem, one of the most promising debuts in recent memory.
Rating:
Summary: The quick Andrew Fox has fun with a lazy, fat white vampire!
Review: Jules Duchon is a New Orleans freelance cab driver and vampire. He drives a Cadillac, which comfortably accommodates his 450 pound bulk. For decades, Jules has been content to cruise the city, making meals of the occasional passenger or homeless person. Although often depressed and lonely, Jules consoles himself with pleasant memories and his collection of blues records and vintage pulp magazines. Jules' peaceful existence comes to an end the night he is confronted by angry African American vampire Malice X, who issues him an ultimatum-limit his prey to the white population or suffer dire consequences. Unable to comply, Jules is eventually forced by X's minions to flee New Orleans. His comic adventures in exile and his defiant return to his hometown to confront his nemesis provide the backdrop for the remainder of the novel. FAT WHITE VAMPIRE BLUES is hands down one of the funniest novels you'll ever read, deriving humor from its clueless protagonist, its colorful and varied supporting cast, and from the mores and attitudes of gaudy New Orleans culture. Fox has created the perfect comic character in Jules Duchon, whose sloth, prejudices, outmoded ideas, and general stupidity expose him to increasingly outrageous predicaments. Along the way, Fox wreaks havoc with the notion of vampires as sexy creatures of the night,portraying them as essentially human, limited by the emotions and worries we all face. Thus, instead of the smooth, confident Lestat, we have the inept, insecure Jules; instead of the frightening Claudia, we have the cross dressing Doodlebug. Where Rice's vampires are the masters of all they survey, Fox's have trouble mastering even their simplest of powers (Jules, for instance, cannot mesmerize his prey, he can only induce nausea.) Seemingly deriving inspiration from novels as diverse as John Kennedy Toole's CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, Anne Rice's INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, Michael Chabon's THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY, Christopher Golden's OF SAINTS AND SHADOWS, Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE, FAT WHITE VAMPIRE BLUES offers laughs on every page, even in the midst of harrowing action. Despite the fact that much of the humor is admittedly lowbrow, and that Fox's narrative exhibits sime of the flaws endemic to any first novel, FAT WHITE VAMPIRE BLUES is a comic gem, one of the most promising debuts in recent memory.
Rating:
Summary: The Vampire Book for People Who Don¿t Like Vampire Books
Review: Jules Duchon, native New Orleans vampire-a 450-lb, working class, underachiever-is not the kind of character that one might expect to like, to sympathize with, to agree with, to think of as moral, to think of as deep...but Andrew Fox makes the reader feel all of these things about Jules. When the book begins, Jules is a rather oafish, free-range type of vampire-one who hunts for victims on the street, rather than one who operates some sort of racket to receive blood. (Other vampires in the book have devised ingenious ways to receive easy, regular blood donations without hunting and killing victims.) Jules has been in a slump over the past decade-his world is changing; his neighborhood is going downhill; his favorite nostalgic places are disappearing; he has lost his convenient job with the coroner's office; and he has lost touch with his girlfriend. Jules does not seem to mind his existence, stagnant as it is. Then comes "Malice X," a truly evil, sharp-dressing, black vampire, who threatens Jules to stop preying on black victims, or else.... Jules' journey to claim his territory forces him to confront his (also morbidly obese) ex-girlfriend, Maureen, who seemingly detests him for his obesity and his lack of suavity; and his old vampiric side-kick, Duddlebug, estranged by Jules since becoming a cross-dresser. Jules also is forced to face his feelings about his childhood in the Catholic church, his own vampiric killing, his weight and obesity, his preconceived notions on homosexuals (cross dressers), and his true views on racism, while leading the reader through a lively and accurate description of the up and downsides of New Orleans. Jules is a character that grows (emotionally) and brings the reader along with him on his journey of self-exploration. All of the book's characters, both main and supporting, are completely engrossing and real. The dialogue rings true for each character, and dialects are accurate. The book is very fast moving and hard to put down, with each ingenious plot twist spelled out in believable ways, all based on strong foundations laid down from the beginning of the book. Fat White Vampire Blues reads like mainstream fiction, with lovable characters, believable plot twists, snappy dialogue, and tons of New Orleans lore. Although the lessons Jules learns are serious and the reader takes Jules seriously, lots of laughs are scattered throughout the book. Anyone who has spent time in New Orleans will marvel at the accurate portrayal of the City. Those who have not spent time there will be forced to wonder if such a dichotomy of a place could truly exist. (It does!) I would recommend this book to a wide range of readers, from those who like vampires, to Sci-Fi/fantasy/horror fans, to plot/action-oriented readers, to readers who read character based fiction. Fox's timing, plotting, and character development are flawless. I love this book.
Rating:
Summary: (Un)live a little... laugh!
Review: Karen (the reviewer below) is RIGHT--lighten up! This book is a hoot, with plenty of laugh-out-loud scenes. The author is endlessly creative while remaining true to the common vampire paradigm. The characters are interesting and the plot is weird enough to be engaging but doesn't leave any loose ends. It's steeped in New Orleans culture, the prose is solid, the dialogue is believable... It's hard to knock. It's exactly what it set out to be: a fairly light, broad spoof of Rice and the vampire genre in general. Heck, I'd just spent weeks trying to read Blues with a Feeling, that textbook-awful Little Walter bio, and let me tell you that THIS was a breath of fresh air after that.
Rating:
Summary: My wife and I both love it!
Review: My wife's tastes run to Jan Karon and mine run to Robert Parker, and both of us love _The Fat White Vampire Blues_. As a near New Orleans resident and aspiring writer, few things fascinate me more than a book that can capture not only the New Orleans scene and characters but somehow the feel of life down here. The intentional similarity to _A Confederacy of Dunces_ resonates well, but the freshness of Fat White Vampire makes it more fun for me. I especially like the way Jules never quite manages to get his shape-changing right. How many books on the supernatural really deal well with this problem in life, the fact that bad things happen when we try something new? I can't wait for the sequel.
|
