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Stagestruck Vampires And Other Phantasms by Suzy McKee Charnas
01/09/2006 . Source: Pauline Morgan 
pub: Tachyon Publications. 328 page hardback. Price: $24.95 (US). ISBN: 1-892391-21-X. Buy Stagestruck Vampires And Other Phantasms in the USA - or Buy Stagestruck Vampires And Other Phantasms in the UK  check out website: www.tachyonpublications.com
Ever since Bram Stoker wrote 'Dracula', the public has been fascinated by the idea of vampires in literature. Blood-sucking demons have featured in the mythology of many cultures but this was one of the first attempts to place the vampire central to the plot of a novel. The Victorians regarded this as dangerous literature as the sub-text was one of female sexuality. Since then, stories about vampires have roughly fallen into two camps. There are those in which the vampire is inherently evil and must be exterminated. The extreme of this is 'I Am Legend' by Richard Matheson in which very few normal humans survive as the world has been taken over by vampires intent wiping out human life - a very short sighted aim as it will leave them nothing to feed on. At the other extreme, are the cuddly vampires. These are really nice, sexy people who are misunderstood or, if you prefer, sexual icons for women who wish they could live a little dangerously. The best of the nice vampires is Le Comte de Saint-Germain created by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. He still drinks blood, but his motives are humane.
Very few authors seem to be able to add to vampire lore. It is more usual for one or other set of conventions to be adhered to. In 1980, Suzy McKee Charnas gave us something new. In the short story, 'Unicorn Tapestry' we were introduced to Edward Weyland. A college teacher, he comes to psychiatrist Floria Landauer claiming to suffer from the delusion of being a vampire. He is in fact the real thing but needs to be certified as cured in order to move on to a new job. This story is the earliest in this collection, 'Stagestruck Vampires And Other Phantasms', and is the key to it. 'A Musical Interlude', written in the same year, sees Weyland taking up his new post and being taken to the opera to see a performance of Tosca.
'The Stagestruck Vampire' is the piece that gives the collection its title. It is a very enjoyable account of how Charnas became a playwright and saw the staging of 'Unicorn Tapestry' in the theatre.
Charnas' interest in music and opera in particular provides the stimulus for 'Beauty And The Opera Or The Phantom Beast'. Most people know the story of 'The Phantom Of The Opera' based on M. Gaston Leroux's novel in which the Phantom, living beneath the opera-house, kidnaps a young soprano when she falls in love with a young man who distracts her from her craft. In this version, the girl is persuaded to stay with her kidnapper who buys off her lover. This is a delightful story of a relationship that starts badly but in which the two characters achieve an understanding. What begins as a horror story evolves into comfortable acceptance if the situation.
Charnas is fond of turning familiar themes on their heads. 'Boobs' is a werewolf story. As she hits adolescence, Boobs encounters a lot of cruel taunts, but she also discovers that on certain nights, she turns into a wolf. This gives her the opportunity to take revenge on the boy who is making her life a misery. Like any teenager, she has to discover the limits of her abilities and develop her own moral code. She may do bad things but at no time do her actions come across as evil.
'Evil Thoughts' is a psychological horror story. Fran is finding her life difficult to cope with and when a crazy neighbour tells her that the toadstools growing in the lawn are her evil thoughts, she begins to equate the growth of the fungi with her own problems.
Some authors rarely collaborate on stories. Charnas was asked to write a story with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro in which both their vampires met and played significant roles. They found it difficult as they work in very different ways. 'Preface To 'Advocates' describes the problems they had in making the story work. It is followed by the story itself. 'Advocates' is set in a future where society is controlled by vampires. Weyland is arrested and accused of preying on other vampires. Le Comte de Saint-Germain is appointed his advocate. It is a story that not only explores a future society but highlights the dilemmas that the scenario throws up. The authors did a very good job in writing two completely different characters with very different outlooks on the condition of being a vampire into a story that works for both of them.
'Peregrines' could probably be classed as fantasy. The narrator, Edie, is one of those people who you like and get on with well but as soon as they are out of sight, tend to be forgotten. All her life, Edie has found, to her frustration, that she is invisible. She makes a meagre living as a tarot reader in a local bookshop. She befriends two boys who seem to be homeless. It is possible that they are illegal immigrants but in her company, they, too, become invisible. Just as people use the tarot to help them make decisions, Edie has to make decisions in her own life. This is another excellent, unusual story from a skilled writer.
Charnas is probably associated in the minds of many as a feminist writer. Her first two novels, 'Walk To The End Of The World' and 'Motherlines', were certainly radical in their approach. The last piece in this volume 'They're Right, Art Is Long' is an essay detailing the beginning of her writing career and the development of these two books and their much later sequels. Like 'The Stagestruck Vampire' is very readable and gives an insight into the way a writers mind works.
It is along time since Charnas has published a novel which is a shame because her work is always worth reading.
Pauline Morgan
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