Lost Souls Belonged to the Crowd of Spirits Inside His Head

~Lost Souls~
By Poppy Z. Brite
Amazon ~ Powell's

At a club in Missing Mile, N.C., the children of the night gather, dressed in black, looking for acceptance. Among them are Ghost, who sees what others do not. Ann, longing for love, and Jason, whose real name is Nothing, newly awakened to an ancient, deathless truth about his father, and himself.

Others are coming to Missing Mile tonight. Three beautiful, hip vagabonds - Molochai, Twig, and the seductive Zillah (whose eyes are as green as limes) are on their own lost journey; slaking their ancient thirst for blood, looking for supple young flesh.

They find it in Nothing and Ann, leading them on a mad, illicit road trip south to New Orleans. Over miles of dark highway, Ghost pursues, his powers guiding him on a journey to reach his destiny, to save Ann from her new companions, to save Nothing from himself...


I picked this one up as my first participation in Maven of the Eventide's (aka Elisa Hansen's) Vampire Book Club, wherein she offers her extensive library of as yet unread vampire literature as choices for a monthly vote and subsequent livestreamed discussion. After seeing her book club's discussion of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires from a couple months back, I decided a monthly dip into vampire fiction sounded like fun, so requested the upcoming book from the library. Despite my best efforts, the ebook didn't become available to download until the morning of the livestream, so I only managed to read about 45% before the stream started. Looking back, perhaps the universe was trying to warn me...

First things first: MAJOR TRIGGER WARNINGS for sexual assault, incest, drug use, suicidal thoughts, pedophilia, gore, abortions, and lots and lots of blood and death. This book screams squicky. That part in the book blurb about the three vagabonds "looking for supple young flesh" isn't exaggerating. These vampires are all about carnal pleasures—practically hedonistic—and they don't care at all about the age of their companions/victims. One of the main characters, Nothing, who 'parties hard' with the vampires is only 15, and their first companion in the book was only 16.

Now, vampires in general are bound to cause some discomfort when it comes to sex and consent. After all, their most common motifs have always been power imbalance and taboo sexuality. But vampires aren't the only ones partaking in reprehensible behavior, as the readers are also privy to a flashbacks wherein another of the book's main characters, Steve, rapes his caught-cheating girlfriend, plus another where the girl from the prologue requests and initiates sex with her own father. Later on we're also told of a female vampire who was raped and impregnated by a human she had sought out.

You'll notice that each of these female characters (nearly the entire cast of female characters in the book) were not only raped (either violently or statutorily), but also had an accompanying "excuse" for their rape: Jesse, the 16-year-old girl, was asking, begging for sex from both her father and the vampires; Ann was caught cheating and so incurred Steve's wrath; and the female vampire, Richelle, initiated the interaction with her rapist, though we "don't know whether she meant to feed upon him or only to engage him in her usual sort of love," and then was too drunk to protect herself.

All three end up the same, punished for their sexual promiscuity with pregnancy and subsequent death. (It is also unclear as to why/how Richelle was susceptible to death by childbirth when the other [male] vampires could die only by damage to the heart or brain.)

There are theories surrounding the author's choice of writing his female characters with such irreverence and cruelty, but I won't assume to know his mindset then or now. I can only present them as they are, and they are all sad, one-dimensional husks of characters. Ann is the only one of the three who actually gets some narration from her perspective, and the majority of it is directly relating to the men in her life. From her strained relationship with Steve, through her gentler but unsatisfying nights with Eliot, her friendship with Ghost, her immediate infatuation with Zillah, her fear of her father, and finally circling back around to a fear and longing for Steve, that is about all we get from her. And those are her POV sections. The only individual characterization she gets—that she was into art at one point—was from one of Steve's reminiscences. In short, I can only call 'em as I see 'em, and this book is misogynistic through and through.

So why was Lost Souls such a "formative work of modern goth vampire fiction," as the book club's discussion alleged? Well, it might have something to do with that 90's grunge factor. No doubt heavily inspired by the movie The Lost Boys (it's even mentioned in the book), these vampires are dirty in all the best ways. Jet black hair, flawless pale skin, piercings wherever, black clothing (better to hide the blood), and with an eternity to waste, these guys are going full hedonism. Drugs, sex, alcohol, and blood (or semen in a pinch) are their entire subsistence. And the sex doesn't have to be with women. In fact, it'd probably be better if it wasn't.

That's right, for all the squicky sexual content in this book, the one positive thing it has going is its huge pro-gay, pro-bi, and pro-ace message. Yeah, for all the dubious consent that vampire fiction is known for, this book—this book—allows an asexual character to back out of an obviously forced sexual agreement. [Lucky he was a guy—okay, okay, I'll drop it.] The gay and bi main cast get a lot of love here (ha), and that's great to see, especially knowing how popular this book was at the time. Sure, most of the relationships are toxic in one way or another (especially concerning the FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY), but that stems from the characters involved not the company they seek. Christian, the nearly 400-year-old and only conscionable vampire of the bunch, conducts himself like a gentleman, showing remorse and respect for his victims (at least in his general conduct and the 1 time we see him feed), and Nothing's original teen group seemed almost exclusively bisexual and chill about it. Even Ghost and Steve's relationship, which I hate to cast in a good light since Steve is a rapist, thief, and all-around trash human being, is depicted as loving and supportive.

I'll also begrudgingly admit that I found some of the later parts of the story surprisingly insightful. I think participating in the book club discussion actually helped me in reading the second half, as knowing what was coming ahead of time cut down on the shock factor and rage, allowing for more level-headed processing and analysis. Thus, I was actually intrigued by some of the parallels drawn between the vampires and humanity:

The tangle of rosebushes still grew wild in the backyard, and though Missing Mile was deep in winter, one rose blossomed in the heart of the thicket. When Ghost reached for it, a thorn sank like a tooth into the ball of his thumb. Bright drops of his blood spattered the frozen ground.
“Blood for blood,”
[...]
“So maybe they were just like us. I hate what they did, what they do. But they’d hate our lives too. Maybe they did what they had to do to live, and tried to get a little love and have a little fun before the darkness took them.” [93%]

The image of a human picking a rose, and thus killing it for no other reason than to enjoy its presence for a day or two, or of vampires being forced to kill as part of their existence, to which we don't begrudge other animals their feeding necessities, really stuck with me. There's even a scene of the vampires performing seemingly sacred rituals for their dead, which came out of nowhere in the overall scheme of things, but still served to endear them to me, just a little bit.

And Christian's death, which most people saw as needlessly cruel and killing off the best character in the discussion, seemed more a mercy to me. He was finally free from being forced to kill to survive, or suffering from loneliness or threatened with it. Granted, he may have had a better life with Nothing at his side, but it was clear he was also feeling guilt for Nothing being dragged into this vampiric life, so perhaps it was a mercy to release him from regret and guilt as well.

Then again, the constant death worship was still disturbing, both on the part of the vampires and of the humans they were often surrounded by, so not all messages were positive, even in a less-rageful state of mind.

Overall, this slice-of-life horror story followed some of the most unlikable characters and produced some of the most disturbing content I've ever had the misfortune of reading. I regret reading this book. In fact I think the consensus of the discussion was that most people shouldn't read it. I'd only really recommend it if: you are really into vampires, particularly of The Lost Boys variety; are really into vampires and want to research more into their historical progression as a genre; like mature horror and aren't triggered by any of the warnings I listed above; or have read it before and are wondering what it reads like 30 years later. It's not completely devoid of value, obviously, but there is a lot of context and problematic content that should be addressed before attempting a readthrough. Then again, I'm not very well versed in horror, let alone vampire horror (this literally being my 2nd foray ever), so take my squicky feelings as they are. Just don't say I didn't warn you.