Vampires, we know, are a popular brand at least since John Polidori’s Lord Ruthven, allegedly inspired by Lord Byron during a fateful night at Villa Diodati I have already talked about. Joined a few decades later by a female vampire – Le Fanu’s Carmilla – and by the celebrity of the genre Bram Stoker’s Dracula, vampires have since then appeared under any possible kind of incarnations, some of them charming indeed (I am thinking at Ann Rice’s Lestat de Lioncourt, here, definitively my favourite). I can’t say I appreciated the whole Twilight saga – too YA and romance for my tastes – but I still enjoy good vampire stories, if any to see how well writers have played with the trope. Too many of them are simply remaining mainstream, resulting in a bit boring, even when well written, stories and characters.
This is definitively not the case of Lindqvist. If there is a book about vampires that makes no concession whatsoever to the amenities of the genre is this one. The story is deceivingly simple, and it describes the odd relationship between a 12-year-old fat and marginalised boy, Oskar, with Eli, a vampire child from another century, in a working class suburb of Stockholm. You can imagine which kind of story it ensues, even though some chapters do present some surprises.
A novel, two movies
Does the title remind you anything? Yes? Correct. It is a beautiful Morrissey’s song. “Let the right one slip in/ And when at last it does/ I’d say you were within your rights to bite/ The right one and say,/ What kept you so long?” It is also a reference to the fact that vampire won’t come inside uninvited. How polite of them.
One of the things I’ve appreciated the most is the eerie atmosphere of the book. The city doesn’t look like a haunted place. It could be just your small town everywhere in Northern Europe, normal, boring, with cruel youngsters and petty crimes. This makes the story scary, not the deed itself. If you haven’t read the cover, you won’t imagine from the start this is about vampires, although after the first crime you start having some rightful suspicions. You also spot quite soon who the (initial) vampire is, and you can’t but be sympathetic with this character – about which I won’t say a thing to avoid spoilers, because even a short sentence could give *it* away (neuter intentional here).
It has been said that the author is the Swedish Stephen King, and with some merits. As mentioned by Jenny Turner in the Guardian “Like King, he is a lovely writer, plain and spare. And as with King, when it works, it works brilliantly, the human and the demonic snapping smartly together, as if they belonged that way all along: he channels the traditional vampire as a sick and desperate child, and presents the Renfield character from Stoker’s Dracula as an agonised paedophile teacher.”
So, I certainly recommend it – being vampires your cup of tea or not. And I won’t class this book as a vampire story. Horror is more appropriate – or even thriller, given a few ghastly descriptions. Not for a romantic audience though – so, Twilight haters, have no fear.
fantastic review. I’m reading this book right now. Something I’m really enjoying so far is the timing of different scenes. For example, there is a scene where Oskar is walking through the woods, and a dangerous adult is also walking through the woods. It’s hard to tell up until the very end if/how much Oskar’s life is in danger.
I prefer my vampire books to be of this style: unapologetic, unromantic, yet still following rules of vampire lore. I want my vampires to be determined, selfish, and bloodthirsty, i want them to want to survive. I kinda wish the books didn’t have the word “vampire” all over them, that reveal would be a lot more powerful if you didn’t know it was coming.
Thanks – I appreciated that scene too. Very well written. I think you’re going to like this book, some pages (and characters) are rather moving. But I won’t say more for now…enjoy! 😀