Aging, arthritic, overweight, and out of shape—Jules Duchon is not exactly your grandfather’s vampire. The unambitious Jules is perfectly contented driving a taxi-cab in New Orleans, listening to his vintage jazz records, and living off the blood of poor, overweight and mostly black residents in the seedier side of the city. His routine is shattered by the arrival in town of a younger, stronger black vampire who claims New Orleans’ black population for his new vampire community and forbids Jules access to it. With his food supply threatened, Jules must act to overthrow “Malice X” and his cronies, aided by his erstwhile lover and vampire mentor Maureen and a cross-dressing vampire named Doodlebug. Fox’s writing evokes the sensuous, earthy side of New Orleans, with its jazz clubs, cajun restaurants, back alleys and strip bars, and also happens to be hilarious. Jules is a delightfully conflicted antihero: self-deprecating, sentimental, selfish, impulsive – all too human, as a matter of fact. Readers may be reminded of the protagonist in John Kennedy Toole’s classic Confederacy of Dunces, and may also enjoy Eric Garcia’s dinosaur PI series (Anonymous Rex, etc).
And who encouraged you to read Fat White Vampire? Hmmm?
Well, as a loyal patron of the WRL I thank you both. I had given this book a cursory glance on the new book shelf but never got around to reading it.
…and thanks for Jessica for encouraging me to read Fat White Vampire Blues in the first place! I’m reading the sequel right now (Bride of the Fat White Vampire) and thoroughly enjoying it. I just wish they were in audiobook format.