Among the Immortals: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: In the tradition of Byron and Stoker
Review: I love vampire literature and movies, and there is quite a lot in that subgenre, but much of it is bad. And I love poetry. And i love literature and literary theory. But to be honest, I didn't expect much out of Paul Lake's novel. It calls itself a _literary_ vampire mystery, which is a bit pretentious (and Lake is known as a critic an poet, not a fiction writer). I thought anything that bills itself as a literary vampire story...well, let's just say I didn't expect much out of it. And pleasantly, I was surprised (though I shouldn't have been, Lake writes well-done and interesting essays, and he has a knack for the narrative poem, so I know he can tell a good story). It's a well written story with believable characters (half the fun is guessing who the characters are in real life--and believe me, you can recognize many of the poets within) and a well thought out plot. It even has a nice twisted surprise ending. The only gripe I have is that Lake spends too much time complaining about the state of contemporary poetry and how our poets are 'treated' (sometimes I got the impression that he only wrote the novel so he could complain about what all poets already know..and already comlain about). Other than that you get an interesting story that blends poetry, criticism, literary history, and vampires into a great novel (had one of the big publishing companies released this book instead of Story Line Press, more people might be familiar with the book, but unfortunately Story Line, great press that it is, has never had the money to set forth much of an advertising or publicity campaign).