By POPPY Z. BRITE (Delacorte Press; 1992)

This was the first hardcover to be released by the fabled Dell Abyss horror line (“Abyss is horror unlike anything you’ve ever read before…Abyss is for the seeker of truth, no matter how disturbing or twisted it may be”), and may well be the single most overhyped horror novel to emerge from a decade that contained more than its share of overhyped scare fiction.  It was the debut novel by Poppy Z. Brite (currently known as Billy Martin, although the former moniker is still used), a “25-year-old powerhouse of a writer” and apparently a “major new voice in dark fiction.”

To be sure, the vampire themed LOST SOULS is impressive in many aspects.  Brite’s bejeweled prose, which had already been displayed in a number of short stories (one of which, the previously unpublished “Seed of Lost Souls,” provided the impetus for this book), is a wonder, with a poetic edge that doesn’t get in the way of the story’s harsh, brutal gist.  On the downside, the author’s youthful status is all too evident in the naïve and unworldly viewpoint, which prizes grunge-era chic above all else.

As is often the case with neophyte writers, the novel’s major influences, THE LOST BOYS and NEAR DARK (both of which get directly referenced), are cinematic rather than literary.  Echoes of both films are evident in the band of nomadic vampires, Molochai, Zwig and Zillah, at the center of LOST SOULS.  These van-based freaks alight in a New Orleans bar run by another vampire named Christian, where Zillah seduces and impregnates a naïve teenage girl.  This results in the inception of Nothing, a vampire child who rips and tears his way out of the womb and ends up abandoned by Christian on a Maryland doorstep.

Fifteen years later Nothing, now a gay teenage outcast, hits the road in search of a punk band called Lost Souls.  He meets up with Molochai, Zwig and Zillah, and finds in their aimless world of drugs, sex and blood-drinking a contentment he lacked in the care of his terminally square foster parents (in this novel anyone who isn’t alternatively inclined is suspect), and no wonder: the author romanticizes the nomad lifestyle incessantly.  Nothing is especially enamored with Zillah, unaware of the incestuous nature of their union.

Also afoot are Steve and Ghost, characters who appear in many Brite stories, and who comprise Lost Souls.  They’re in conflict with Zillah, who has impregnated Steve’s girlfriend Ann (meaning she’s fated to undergo a womb ripping similar to the one experienced by Nothing’s mother).  Brite’s primary interest, however, is on Nothing’s relationship with his newfound vampire family, which he may find beneficial but, as is made clear on numerous occasions, is fated to end badly.

Attesting to the author’s neophyte status is the poor storytelling.  The narrative is vastly over-reliant on coincidence and happenstance, with the story literally pivoting on its protagonists running into each other at opportune points.  It’s a good thing the writing is so strong, as narrative momentum is woefully lacking.

Yet the book contains a great deal of perverse gusto.  Splatterpunk was quite popular in ‘92, and this novel partook of the movement’s two major tenants—sex and violence—with great relish.  This may have been the first-ever narrative to explicitly link oral sex and vampirism (as apparently “come has almost exactly the same chemical makeup as human blood”).  That tendency toward perversity would reach its apotheosis in EXQUISITE CORPSE (1996), Brite’s undoubted masterpiece; LOST SOULS isn’t in the same league (nowhere near it, in fact), but does offer a foretaste of what was to come.