Redheaded Reviews: Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

Moore writes funny and offbeat novels that tackle a subject and skewer it. This time its vampires. Jody is a twenty-six-year-old redhead who works in insurance and is walking to the bus stop late one night when she is turned into a vampire and left under a garbage dumpster with her hand sticking out. When she awakens at night, her hand is badly burnt, but beginning to heal, and she has $100,000 taped to her chest. She can see auras around people. Most people have a red aura around them, but those dying have a black one.

She takes the bus back to the apartment she shares with a jerk Kirk who's a low-level trader in a firm in the financial district of San Francisco. Kirk, being less than sensitive doesn't ask about her hand or wonder if she's hurt but how it affects him. Now that's she's back he doesn't want to deal with her because he has to get up early in the morning for work. Jody picks up a planter and throws it at his head knocking him out then begins to feed on him, but just a little bit. After a short while, the holes in his neck disappear. She packs a bag of her stuff and leaves to check into a motel. She does realize though that she'll need a human companion to handle the daylight hours stuff. So she goes in search of one.

Tommy is a nineteen-year-old guy just in from Indiana who wants to be a writer who, from the tip of the Emperor, the local bum who helps the city with his two dogs Bummer and Lazarus, takes the job as night manager of Marina Safeway. This job involves ordering and unloading stock. He works with the Animals: Simon McQueen who sees himself as a cowboy; Jeff Murray a has-been high school basketball star; Clint, a myopic born-again Christian; Drew, the pot supplier; Troy Lee, Kung Fu fighter; Gustavo, a large family man; Barry, a scuba diver; and Lash, who is studying business at San Francisco State. The guys like to turkey bowl with dish detergent bottles as pins. Tommy proves himself to be quite impressive in the sport and fits in very well with the gang.

One night Jody is walking in their parking lot and Simon goes outside and makes a pest of himself hitting on her. Tommy goes out and sends Simon back inside and apologizes to her for his behavior. The two connect and she asks him to meet her the next night a half hour after sunset at Enrico's restaurant. At dinner she asks him to get an apartment with her, seeing as neither have one at the moment. It doesn't mean they have to have a sexual relationship or anything--at least not right off. She gives him money to look for an apartment and to get her car out of police impound where it was towed for illegal parking.

He can't get her car out, but he finds the perfect loft with no windows in the bedroom or bathroom that has a large number of bookshelves for all of his books. He immediately takes it and shows it to her that night and they have sex and she bites him during sex a little bit which both enjoy. Then she tells him that she is a vampire and he seems to accept in stride but is determined to find out all about her powers since the man who turned her didn't tell her anything except to call her later and tell her that she isn't immortal and can be killed. He experiments with that by drowning her in the bathtub filled with ice and she survives that fine. But most of his vampire experiments are a failure and just drive her crazy as they are from works of fiction.

The ancient vampire that made her is stalking her and killing people and leaving them near where she is staying. He left one at the motel she stayed at. He left one in front of the loft, but she grabbed it and put it in a deep freezer Tommy had delivered until they could figure out what to do with him. He had killed another man, a bum before he turned her. They have broken necks and are drained dry. He is toying with her to see how long she can last before she screws up and has to be killed along with her "pet", Tommy.

Two detectives Rivera and Cavuto are on the case of who killed these people and drained the bodies. They are also investigating the redheaded ninja who beat up to a pulp three men at a laundromat. Cavuto is a tough, cigar smoking third generation gay cop who believes the rules don't apply while Riveria is a thoughtful, calmer cop who seems more open to believing the impossible might be at play here.

This is a book that pokes fun at the vampire myth in a merry way. This book was written in 1995 at the time of AIDS so there are people in it with the disease. It was also written just when California passed the law making it illegal to smoke indoors so there's some commentary about that too. Will Jody ever kill someone? Can Jody and Tommy make their relationship work? There is a cashier at work who is interested in him and she is human and gets what its like to be human and do human things. At the same time, Jody is thinking the same thing about the ancient vampire. He gets her like no one else does and he has the answers she seeks. Jody is a character that can fly off the handle at a moment's notice and she takes the dominant role in the relationship. Poor Tommy seems to do whatever she says. But Tommy does have a backbone and he will use it, it will just be poor timing on his part when he does. This book is not as good as some of the other Christopher Moore books I've read such as Lamb, Noir, and The Stupidest Angel, but its still a Moore book and that means something. It's a book that will tickle your funny bone a great deal. I give it four out of five stars.
Quotes

His writer’s mind kicked in and he thought, This woman could break my heart. I could crash and burn on this woman. I could lose this woman, drink heavily, write profound poems, and die in the gutter of tuberculosis over this woman.

-Christopher Moore (Bloodsucking Fiends p 49)

That’s not the point, Tommy. I might be immortal, but I’ve lost a big part of my life. Like French fries. I miss eating French fries. I’m Irish, you know. Ever since the Great Potato Famine my people get nervous if they don’t eat French fries every few days. Did you think about that?

-Christopher Moore (Bloodsucking Fiends p 148)

“So we’re fucked.” “It’s too early for us to be fucked. I’d say we’ve been taken to dinner and slipped the tongue on the good-night kiss.”

-Christopher Moore (Bloodsucking Fiends p 150)