Bloodsucking Friends: A Love Story ANNOTATION
With a psychedelic inventiveness that invites comparisons with Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins, the author of Coyote Blue spins a tale of vampires on the loose in San Francisco--a love story readers can really sink their teeth into!
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Christopher Moore spins a hip tale of vampires on the loose and in love in San Francisco. When Jody wakes up in an alley, under a dumpster, with a badly burned arm and a pain in her neck, she knows it isn't going to be one of her better days. She feels awful, looks worse; her clothes are torn, her sense of smell is suddenly as sharp as an animal's, she can see heat, and she has super-human strength. And one more thing - she has an insatiable thirst for blood. What she doesn't realize is that this is only the beginning.... C. Thomas Flood (Tommy to his friends) has just arrived in San Francisco, full of dreams of becoming the next literary wunderkind. Instead he ends up working at the local Safeway and playing frozen turkey bowling with the motley night crew. He's also sharing a crowded apartment with five Chinese men who want to marry him in order to keep from getting deported. Could things get any worse? One night Tommy meets the strikingly beautiful Jody on one of her nocturnal visits to the supermarket and gets the surprise of his life when the casual date they make to meet the next night (after sunset, of course) triggers the start of a relationship destined to span eternity. Life (and the afterlife) will never be the same....
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Horror, farce and adolescent fantasy mix with uncertain results in this latest offbeat novel from the author of Coyote Blue and Practical Demonkeeping. Attacked on her way home from work in San Francisco's financial district, sexy redhead Jody wakes up under a dumpster and gradually realizes that she has transformed into a vampire. Needing a safe place to hide from daylight and her attacker as she masters her new powers, she turns to Tommy, a 19-year-old aspiring writer from Indiana whom she's just met. Becoming lovers, the two get an apartment together where Tommy avidly studies the mysteries of both vampires and women. But Jody's vampire mentor, Elijah Ben Sapir, who's leaving blood-drained bodies all over the city, has it in for Tommy-as do the cops, who suspect the young man of the killings. With the aid of both the rebellious young misfits he works with and an eccentric homeless man, Tommy aims to vanquish Elijah Ben Sapir in order to save his beloved and himself. Moore's seemingly off-the-cuff narrative and plotting fail to deliver on an imaginative beginning. Despite offering some amusing moments, the author gives little depth to his motley cast of characters and wavers awkwardly between fable and satire. (Sept.)
Library Journal
Tommy Flood, a teenaged Jack Kerouac wannabe, leaves his home in Indiana to search for his artistic muse and some adventure. What he finds is Jody, a beautiful redhead who has recently been transformed into a vampire and is trying to find a way to cope with her new "life." Together they go on a giddy romp of San Francisco, dealing with the occasional corpse, some suspicious cops, and a nasty old vampire. They also discover some surprising truths about morality, love, and the mechanics of vampirism along the way. A note to vampire fans: Anne Rice this isn't. Filled with oddball characters, clever dialog, and hilarious situations that are Moore's (Coyote Blue, LJ 1/94) trademarks, this delightful tale deserves a spot on all popular fiction shelves. Highly recommended.-Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, Ind.
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