I Was a Teenage Vampire
By June Pulliam
M. T. Anderson. Thirsty. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2003. c. 1997. 256 p.
It is said that old age is not for the feint of heart. The same old saw can also be applied to coming of age, especially in horror fiction for young adults. Here, discovering one's self adrift in adult world, without a mentor or even a set of directions, is the most frightening thing of all, worse than any vampires, wraiths, or demons. This is certainly the case in M. T. Anderson's vampire novel Thirsty, which ends with the protagonist, Chris, desperately struggling to remain human. This is not easy to do when you're a just a teenager, especially if you're also a vampire.
Thirsty is not your typical modern vampire novel, where the ranks of the undead have killer fashion sense and agonize and philosophize about every kill ad nauseum. Aside from Chris, there are no sympathetic vampires here, and they are certainly not unknown to the human world. Instead, the human race knows all too well that vampires are real, and are walking and killing among them, and thus, they must be hunted down and staked at all costs. Chris's home town of Clayton has the particular responsibility of containing Tch'muchgar, lord of the undead, whose is imprisoned in a subterranean cavern.
For all of his young life, Chris has no quarrel with keeping down Tch'muchgar, or with the summary judgment meted out people discovered to be vampires. After all, vampires must kill humans in order to live. But Chris begins to question all believes when, during an execution of a vampire, the condemned looks him in the eye and seems to recognize something within him. While people in this universe are born, not made, into vampires, they don't realize their true nature until adolescence. Soon after this encounter, Chris realizes that he too is a vampire as his teeth are getting a bit long, especially when he gets angry. This state of mind also gives him a disturbing lust for blood.
Soon, a creature claiming to be a celestial being named Chet comes to Chris, claiming he can help him retain his humanity if only he will assist the Forces of Light in keeping Tch'muchgar imprisoned. Chris has his doubts about Chet's true motives, but agrees to help anyway, even when another celestial being appears and claims that he, not Chet, is the true representative of the Forces of Light. Chris must not only decide which being is truly on the side of light, but whether or not it is worth fighting his newly emerging vampire instincts or instead giving into his urges.
The vampire storyline itself is nothing special--young adults, the novel's primary audience might enjoy it, but older readers might find it tedious and predictable. Instead, Chris's own battle is memorable as it accurately replicates tensions inherent in developing an adult identity. Chris's struggle to remain human, protecting other people, especially his family, from his bloodlust, is the struggle to grow up that we all faced. After all, an important part of maturation is learning to put the needs of others before one's own. Predictably, Chris's vampiric powers surface when he becomes angry or sexually excited, so in order to remain (or become) fully human, he must learn to control his baser instincts.
But Chris's struggle is about more than his learning to behave in socially acceptable ways. He must also decide about how he'll interact with others as an adult. Chris has the option of maintaining the status quo by maintaining his friendships with others who are neither popular nor unpopular, which will cause him to grow into a thoughtless, vampire-repressing adult. Or, he can cast his lot with the vampires, who, for all their blood-drinking and killing, are an equally tedious and predictable lot once they reach middle age. Or he can follow a new path, daring to dream of a day when vampires and humans can peacefully co-exist. It is this struggle which makes Anderson's vampire protagonist emerge as the most fully human, and consequently, the most interesting, of all his characters.