Vanitas: Escape from Vampire Junction

Vampire Junction, S. P. Somtow's groundbreaking novel of vampiric horror, introduced Timmy Valentine, a world-famous rock star with the body of a twelve-year-old boy...and the ageless soul of a bloodthirsty predator. Timmy returned in Valentine, in which he finally shed his undead curse forever. Or did he?In Vanitas, Timmy Valentine has relinquished his immortality and transferred his vampiric essence to young Angel Todd. Timmy is now an ordinary boy, awakened at last from an ancient nightmare. His new album has just come out, but there's something missing. In a desperate bid to salvage his career, he goes on a world tour. Every stop, though, brings haunting memories of his inhuman past and terrifying manifestations of a blood-drenched future.

From Publishers Weekly

Twelve years ago, Somtow's Vampire Junction rocked the horror world with its graphic violence and sex and gave birth to the movement known as "splatterpunk." This third novel in the saga of teenage vampire rock star Timmy Valentine keeps the shocks coming while bringing its protagonist into confrontation with characters and insights introduced in Vampire Junction and in Valentine (1993). Ever since he appropriated the soul of movie double Angel Todd to resume life as a mortal, Timmy, a castrato frozen at age 13 for almost 2000 years, has been experiencing a "vanitas"-a spiritual malaise-that has sapped his music of its passion. A similar ennui has overtaken Timmy's buddy, art gallery owner PJ Gallagher. Enter the discorporate spirit of the fallen Angel, who refuses to let Timmy forget him and begins manipulating mortals to commit brutal vampire-like crimes that are then immortalized on canvas by PJ's hot new prospect, neo-Gothic painter Lauren McCandless. Realizing that only they can put a stop to Angel's bloody atrocities, Timmy and PJ head for a showdown with him "at the edge of reality, the place where dreams collide," in a pyrotechnic finale spun from vampire lore, Thai folk legends and Shoshone mysticism. On the way, Timmy ruminates in flashbacks on the many historical personalities whose lives he has touched, including Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and Vlad Tepes. Timmy's experiences closely parallel the exploits of Anne Rice's infamous vampire Lestat, but Somtow breaks up the novel's moments of Lestatian introspection with uninhibited jolts of carnage and sex. The result is a vibrant climax to one of the most original vampire chronicles in modern horror fiction. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Timmy Valentine, a 2000-year-old vampire who has recovered his humanity, and Angel Todd, a Kentucky youth who has traded his soul for immortality, are locked in a struggle between the forces of good and evil and magic and faith. Somtow's mix of fascinating, offbeat characters and scintillating, evocative prose push his latest novel beyond the boundaries of standard vampire fiction. The author's graphic sex and violence scenes only enhance the story's impact. Recommended for most libraries.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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