Fiend Is No Friend to Originality

By Tony Fonseca

06/26/2005 

Jefferson, Jemiah. Fiend. New York: Leisure, 2005. 326 p.

Fiend is the tale of Orfeo Ricari, the depressed vampire of Voice of the Blood. In Voice, he is portrayed as being a hopeless romantic who is averse to killing; therefore he spends the bulk of his undeath brooding—and starving. In Fiend, we meet Orfeo as a human teen in Italy. His family is somewhat well off, having made its fortune in olive oil (which can also be used in Holy Water). It should come as no surprise then that Orfeo is a devout Catholic, the type of human who would view vampirism as being decadent and perverse. However, he is a good candidate for the fanged life, for he is ever the picaro—prone to give in to lustful desires, as in the novel's early homoerotic scenes where he is initiated into the world of sex by his tutor Lorenzo.

Even though he feels extremely guilty every time Lorenzo sodomizes him, he eventually runs off with the older, more worldly teacher, ostensibly to find Byron, who is traveling the continent. But Orfeo is a terrible judge of character, and Lorenzo is only the first person to use him. Orfeo ends up getting dumped in Paris, and survives only because of the generosity of two refined, seemingly aristocratic women, Maria and Georgina. He knows that they are wampyre, but he allows himself to be taken into their servitude, and is eventually turned by the two. Thus begins the tale of Orfeo's birth into the world of darkness.

Nonetheless, it is his jadedness once he has been indoctrinated into the mysteries of immortality that begin the novel. He lies in his coffin, having become (surprise, surprise) a complete recluse, and wishes for the termination of his unending existence. He tells his story in flashback, not leaving out any detail. This plays well into Jefferson’s hand, as her strength as a writer is her ability to create lush, vivid images of places and people through descriptive minutia, reminiscent of Poppy Z. Brite and Anne Rice. So her sex scenes are extremely visual, often graphic, and her characters are well drawn. Her sense of history is also admirable, as she gives her readers a brief taste of pre and post revolution Paris, as well as Nazi Germany. These kinds of historical details help to ground her characters in the real world, which is useful for vampire lore. Here, it helps us to keep up with Orfeo's age, to get a real sense of how long his life actually is. Unfortunately, for me, this is where my enjoyment of the novel ended.

Okay, I will admit that a novel about a young aristocrat being made into a vampire and adapting somewhat painlessly to the lifestyle of the predator is an excellent idea, and having the character tell his story, from the point of his being "turned" onward, is good fodder for horror literature. And yes, having a vampire question immortality's appeal and take a thoughtful look at the morality of becoming a bloodsucker is an exciting possibility. It was when Anne Rice did it in 1976 and 1980. And that is the problem. Reading Fiend, I got this strange feeling of deja vu. The back cover of the novel gives the reader forewarning, one that should be taken seriously—that comparisons to Rice are “inevitable.” That goes without saying when Fiend pretty much reads like a less ponderous version of Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat.

Fortunately, the story does moves at a swift pace, and it doesn't take long for us to meet the real stars of the tale: Maria, Georgina, M. Chicot, and the irrepressibly despicable Daniel Blum (the Lestat to Orfeo's Louis). But these wonderful characters are not the consciousness of the novel, and I see that as somewhat problematic. The story is Orfeo's to tell, and if you are sick of the much-ado-about-nothing whining that is characteristic of so much vampire fiction, you will find no respite in Orfeo's narrative. Perhaps Jefferson should have heeded her own advice in my favorite chapter of the novel, "La Vie Nouvelle," which tells of Orfeo's first days as a newbie vampire. He accidentally kills a dance hall girl and while disposing of the body, runs into several roughs in an alley. He uses his mind control powers to send them away, but overdoes this a bit, making them sick. He realizes that "that's too much." Well stated Orfeo. Fiend often becomes a bit too much: too much whining, too much sexual teasing, too many witty exchanges. In short, the novel suffers from being too cute.

Yet I do have to hand it to Jefferson. She has incredible talents as a writer, and Fiend will suck in her hardcore fans—and other hardcore vampire novel fans—from page one. She is a master at drawing characters (although I find her dialogue a bit stilted, even for 18th Century aristocrats). She likes to create characters who are complex, tragic, often beautiful. Goths have flocked to this up-and-coming writer, and for good reason.

However, if you're more eclectic in your horror tastes, if you want more than just the typical vampire fare made popular by Rice and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, you may want to pick up My Soul to Keep or The Living Blood by Tananarive Due, a writer similar to Jefferson in descriptive prowess, but one who has produced a truly original vampire mythology. This does not, however, mean that I am writing Jefferson off. She has talent, and I believe that if this promising writer can break out of her cookie-cutter vampire phase, she may produce some truly memorable works