Piercing the Darkness:
Undercover with Vampires
in America Today
by Katherine Ramsland
Harper paperback, 1999, $6.99 U.S.
546pp, Index, Color Photo Section, Extra Chapter, Bibliography
Ramsland is brave, give her that. She walks into situations many of us wouldn’t go near with a posse, like the vampire subculture.
Here is how she got interested: In July of 1996 a journalist named Susan Walsh disappeared while investigating a vampire subculture in and around New York City. Rumors flew like bats but Ramsland, using contacts she had made doing books on Anne Rice and other aspects of vampire culture, wanted to find out for herself so she started interviewing. This soon led her to some deeper, darker connections.
She became interested in the vampire subculture as she sorted out the differences between vampire, vampyre, and goth. Rather than observe from the outside, she decided to jump right in and attend vampire balls, investigate the clubs where the vampires hang out, go to the secret places where they met for darker reasons, and generally become as much one of them as her ethics and reason allowed.
Well-written and well-organized, the book is also sordid in places. It’s unavoidable, given where the topic leads, such as the blood fetish escapades for instance. What ever it is, though, she reports it all with grace, aplomb, and honesty. She admits to being afraid, or outraged, even as she continues asking questions and tracking down answers. Van Helsing has got nothing on Dr. Ramsland.
She covers the internet, where a vampire presence can mean anything from role players and bored teenage poseurs to emotional leaches and deadly predators. Gee, just like real life.
As she goes deeper into the many aspects of what people consider Vampiric she meets fascinating, compelling, and repellent people. Some are blood fetishists. Some are covert gay suckers of blood and cum. Some parade in clubs dressed to the nines in Victorian velvet and lace. Some lurk in lonely woods, or haunt the sub-levels of the subways, where violence and darkness are just for starters.
She meets a minister who preys upon unsuspecting people in his off-time. She meets a few who explore the vampire myth by way of cannibalism — they eat small dollops of flesh.
Worst of all she meets Wraith, a sociopathic manipulator, liar, and creep who ends up being perhaps the most chilling monster in this book of grotesques. He is a self-admitted gay seducer, procurer, and murderer, but he’s no rap artist. Instead he’s got a story to give her, and a ring.
Along with the ring comes a ghost, by the way. One that prompted Ramsland’s next book, Ghost. It’s as eerie and excellent as this one, if not as sordid.
Not all is grime and blood, however. There is much in this book that is light and fun. Many use the vampire role as an inner secret to illuminate their dark places and let them cope from a position of strength with challenges that would knock most of us down, if not out. Some don the garb, others eschew the attire — old-fashioned, even courtly manners and dress elevate some from mundane jobs such as construction worker, while dental inserts let others have fangs to flash across crowded dance floors.
And yes, a bit of lover nibbling does go on, as Ramsland dutifully observes.
She covers vampires in literature, too, and on film. She speaks informatively on why this creature of the darkness, this exploiter of our precious bodily fluids, holds such fascination for so many of us. Her analysis over the course of the book is both systematic and cogent. If it weren’t so riveting to read it would pass as one hell of a fine academic work.
The way the vampire has changed from repellent night creature of rot and corruption to a dashing, romantic figure of mystery and allure — from villain to flawed, tortured, and misunderstood hero — is one of the most interesting parts of her analysis. Her conclusion that perhaps, as the vampire is grasped and owned by increasing numbers of people in increasingly different ways, the image’s potency is being diluted, makes sense in context with the examples she offers.
Fear must remain or the vampire becomes a hollow figure of fun.
Luckily for us, Ramsland finds some fear, even as she confronts a young man so far beyond society’s norms that he may indeed be uncanny in some ways. Her confrontation is breathless and chilling.
Lovers of true crime and criminal psychology will enjoy this book, as will anyone interested in vampires, real or imagined. Lovers of interesting anthropology excursions will also enjoy it. It’s not only about monsters, but also about ordinary people who have found a way to enhance their lives, have some engaging fun, and still change back to normal before dawn.
Which kind are you?
Piercing the Darkness is the single best book to read if you’re wondering how much of the vampire myth is content to remain in its dusty coffin, and how much appeals to you as a living tradition or way of life. Read it and, whether from fear or excitement, shiver.
— Gene Stewart, July 2003
