The Vampire Tapestry

For those who have wondered about having a sensual tryst with a vampire, here’s a literary taste: “Along the contours of his ribs she felt knotted places, hollows — old healings, the tracks of time. The tension of his muscles under her touch and the sharp sound of his breathing stirred her. She lived the fantasy of having sex with an utter stranger; there was no one in the world so much a stranger as he. Yet there was no one who knew him as well as she did, either. If he was unique, so was she, and so was their confluence here.” That eloquently seductive prose is from Suzy McKee Charnas’s novel The Vampire Tapestry. The 1980 horror classic was reprinted this year by Tor Essentials and the publisher deserves much gratitude; the book is indeed essential reading for aficionados of the genre. The narrative is divided into five novella-length sections, each one reflecting the vampire protagonist’s relationships with humans. A predator, he perceives humankind as a herd of prey. Adept at psychologically playing with his food, the vampire’s sustenance is dependent on blending in with society. His enactment of being human leads to more complications than anticipated and, in the overlapping segments that form the chapters of the narrative, the reader is drawn into the specific dilemmas that ensue.

Cloaking himself as Dr. Edward Weyland, a university professor who teaches anthropology, is astute camouflage on the part of the vampire. Professors often are perceived as quirky intellectuals whose idiosyncrasies are part of their iconoclastic brilliance. Weyland’s antisocial persona fits nicely into the academic realm, and since his vampirism is biological rather than supernatural, he need not kill his unwitting blood donors, nor do they subsequently transform into vampires themselves. Hence, there is no corporal evidence to trace him to his sub rosa activities. And his sleep study research lab puts a wealth of slumbering sanguinary satiation at his disposal. But even a covert vampire cannot escape from the pervasive gossip inherent to academia. His colleagues voice their opinions in this cacophony: “Weyland was a supercilious son-of-a-bitch; Weyland was an introverted scholar absorbed in great work; Weyland had a secret sorrow too painful to share; Weyland was a charlatan; Weyland was a genius working himself to death to keep alive the Cayslin Center for the Study of Man.” This is one of Suzy McKee Charnas’s gifts on display in the novel: the ability to convey an insightful overview of group dynamics. When Weyland eventually moves from his initial East Coast teaching position to one in Albuquerque, he winds up attending a performance at the Santa Fe Opera. Charnas hilariously lampoons those in attendance: fanciful operagoers garbed in an array of fashions, whose dialogues indicate levels of operatic knowledgeability and expertise. They run the gamut from novices to connoisseurs to pretentious poseurs. Weyland’s own response to this production of Tosca is grim agitation: “The opera had broken his moorings to the present and launched him into something akin to madness. Human music, human drama, vibrant human voices passionately raised, had impelled him to fly from his despised victims as they sat listening.”

To his knowledge, Weyland is an anomaly. He’s never encountered another vampire in all the centuries of his existence. His memory of the humans he’s known over time fades after he goes into hibernations that facilitate his renewal. Which doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have an impact on certain people whose paths he has crossed. In the case of Mark, a sensitive and precocious ninth grader, there’s an empathy for a wounded and hobbled Weyland who has been captured and imprisoned: “He knew how it felt to pretend composure and confidence in a situation where you were at the mercy of other people. It felt horrible.” For Katje, a displaced middle-aged South African who does menial work at Weyland’s East Coast university, there’s a kindred comprehension: “To lose one’s world these days one did not have to sleep for half a century; one only had to grow older.” And for the therapist assigned to the psychological evaluation imposed upon Weyland by the university, there also comes an epiphany: “When you dance as the inner choreographer directs, you act without thinking, not in command of events but in harmony with them. You yield control, accepting the chance that a mistake might be part of the design. The inner choreographer is always right but often dangerous: giving up control means accepting the possibility of death.”

The choreographer analogy is a way in which Charnas employs the arts as a catalyst for emotion. The example of Weyland reacting to the opera is another, awakening in him an incomprehensibly disturbing sensation. He was overwhelmed by the music and attuned to how art can alter one’s preconceived notions and patterns. It prompts Weyland to wonder if he can sustain the necessary perception of humans as mere food: “Had he been somehow irrevocably opened to the power of their art?”

 Suzy McKee Charnas (1939-2023) maintains a lofty place in genre history for writing The Vampire Tapestry, which was deemed a “masterpiece” by Guillermo del Toro. The Tor Essentials edition features a splendidly illuminating introduction by Nicola Griffith, which is yet another reason to acquire this reprint.