The Vampire Tapestry

I happen to love the idea of vampires, but when they became fodder for mass teenage hysteria, I had almost given up on them.  For a long time I thought I'd gotten tired of all this vampire business, and then I found this book -

WOW!  "The Vampire Tapestry" by Suzy McKee Charnas.

Every once in a while you encounter something so wonderful - it's almost miraculous.  I don't remember when it was that I read Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian," but at that time I thought it was just the best vampire story I've encountered.  There was nothing cheesy and corny and sugary about it.  It didn't glamourize the image of vampires and turn them into teenage pop mascots.  The same is true with Charnas' take on this enigmatic image.  These two stories are about struggles with something much more than human control or comprehension.  They portray battles within the self, and with external conflicts.  A look within and beyond a nature that is too often immediately perceived as evil and unnatural.  What is evil?  How do we confront evil, both within and outside of our human nature?  Who are we to say what is evil and unnatural?  Are we not just as wicked as the monsters we label?  These two books go way beyond the question of love and immortality.  They make you look at what it means to be alive - human or not, to grapple with the humanity inside and not to become the monster that we all have hiding within our darkest fears.