Book Review: Vampire Defanged, The: How the Embodiment of Evil Became a Romantic Hero, Susannah Clements, April 1, 2011, Brazos Press
Clements’ analysis requires an active reader who doesn’t mind thinking. This comes out further in that her conclusions are inevitably controversial….But for active, curious readers, Clements may be the most lucid, readable critic to come out of academia in quite a long time.

Book Review: Vampire Defanged, The: How the Embodiment of Evil Became a Romantic Hero, Susannah Clements, April 1, 2011, Brazos Press (Ed note: This is a public review; an academic review from within the Reformed community is scheduled for next month.)

Susannah Clements attributes vampires’ recent domestication to a diminishment of sin and atonement as themes in Anglo-American culture. Not that we’ve lost our sense of right and wrong, she says, but that we now attribute ethics to different sources, or sometimes to none at all. And she believes re-introducing Christian metaphysics to literature could restore vampires’ prior dignity and terror, and literary culture’s role as social conscience.

Clements’ explicitly Christian literary approach considers vampires, not through hip lenses of sex or sociology, but instead as expressions of public ethics and virtue. This outlook is clearly slanted and partial, as you’d expect, but it also traces an arc: as society has become more secular, vampires have become tame. This rare but necessary angle on myth opens up avenues of discourse that have gone untrodden recently.

Though Clements considers several different vampire stories, she focuses mainly on just five. Starting with Bram Stoker’s rigid pietism, she progresses onto Anne Rice’s more inquisitive, intellectually ambitions vampire treatment; the Buffyverse’s moral equivalency; Sookie Stackhouse’s compartmentalized humanism; and Stephanie Meyer’s moral vacuity. Her approach is tough, and sometimes strident, but consistently insightful.

And, despite her Christianity, Clements doesn’t play favorites. Though she clearly sees something admirable in Stoker’s piety, she actually appears warmest toward Anne Rice. Though her Lestat and other vampires flirt with sacrilege, Clements seems to admire their willingness to ask questions, even if their answers are sometimes contradictory. Clements’ conservative, socially engaged theology never overpowers her resolute literary aims.

This book isn’t for everyone. Though she thankfully avoids egregious critical terminology, Clements’ analysis requires an active reader who doesn’t mind thinking. This comes out further in that her conclusions are inevitably controversial. Anyone seeking fun bedtime reading will be disappointed. But for active, curious readers, Clements may be the most lucid, readable critic to come out of academia in quite a long time.

Author – Susannah Clements is a member of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, VA. She holds a BA from Belhaven College (now University) and an MA and PhD in English from the University of South Carolina. She is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Languages and Literature at Regent University in Virginia Beach, VA. (and the answer to your question is – yes!). Her books are available here.

Reviewer – Kevin L. Nenstiel is a novelist and playwright. Writers and artists Kevin considers exemplary include Paula Vogel, T.C. Boyle, Jim Butcher, Jackson Pollock, Tim O’Brien (the musician), and more. Kevin also paints and sculpts. He is Adjunct Faculty in the English Department at the University of Nebraska, Kearney. He blogs regularly at http://wordbasket.blogspot.com/. This review first appeared at Amazon.com and is used with his permission.