Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore
Looking around the web I found that most people varied in what they felt was Mr. Moore’s greatest work. So, when I got to the bookshop I just picked one on a whim. At the end of the day, I wish I had read Bloodsucking Fiends before reading Lamb. Bloodsucking was good, just not as good. Bloodsucking was funny, just not as funny. Bloodsucking just was.
Obviously with a name like Bloodsucking it’s somewhat obvious that it’s a book involving vampires. Then again, it could also be about housewives that live in Orange County, a bunch of women who live in a city and talk about sex, a similar group of women trying to marry a bachelor or a mall cop named Blart (that last one may be a stretch). But yes, in case you were wondering, it is about vampires.
Where Lamb had a pretty straightforward story, Bloodsucking was kind of lacking in that department for me. It’s a story of a girl, Judy, who by all normal standards has had a pretty shitty day. She’s broken up with her boyfriend, lost her job, her car’s been impounded and she’s been turned into a vampire. When she realizes that running everyday errands is now impossible (you know, vampires and daylight go together like dirty diaper curry with a booger sandwich on the side) she recruits a lackey to get stuff done. That lackey goes by the name of Tommy.
Tommy’s story and that of his life are infinitely more interesting than that of Judy’s. You see Tommy is a boy from Indiana who has moved to San Francisco to pursue his career as a writer and he moonlights as a night time stocker at a grocery store (the safeway store in the marina, to be exact). The stuff that he deals with at work and on a daily basis are far more entertaining than that of Judy’s. His character has actually nearly convinced me to go into the grocery stocking field once my job ends in March (ahem). I think I’d be pretty damn good “turkey bowler” and not to mention it’d be a blast to damage the turkey’s of the marinanites. His story being more fascinating to me could have something to do with the fact that Judy can’t go out during the day but I’m not going to give her that concession.
There is certainly a lot more to the book than I’ve let on. There are murders, the “emperor” of San Francisco, the bad guy, a budding romance and a tribute to a now closed lunch spot in San Francisco.
As did with my review of Lamb I’ve picked out a few of my favorite lines from the book.
Pg. 4 – “I could be the emperor of Oakland” as said by the “emperor” of San Francisco. Who doesn’t love a nice gentle knock on Oakland?
Pg. 25 – “You know, somebody wrote Rambo?” Damn good way to suggest to your overly masculine father that writing is ok career path.
Pg. 68 – A fun little quiz. But I guess you really got to have the book for this one. I’m not really in the mood to transcribe a full page.
I had a couple more but looking back on them I really actually didn’t find them to be too good. And for that reason, I’ve left em out.
Anyways, if you’re interested in reading, what I consider to be, a marginally amusing book give it a go. And to be a little bit more fair to Mr. Moore, I wouldn’t be too surprised if the women of the world liked this one a bit more than the men.
