Jules Duchon spent much of his 100 plus years as a vampire seeking solace in escapist fantasy. Comic books, pulp novels, midnight monster movies... of course, being a vampire he could be excused if he sometimes confused fantasy with reality. Andrew Fox's first novel, Fat White Vampire Blues, revealed that Jules spent WWII thwarting Nazi fifth columnists while wearing a home made costume and calling himself the hooded terror. In Fox's new novel, Bride of the Fat White Vampire, Jules returns from a self-imposed exile to take a turn at playing private detective to solve a mystery involving limbless vampires, big box retailers, and Goth zydeco.
Fox uses the fantasy world he created to explore the shades of gray and subjectiveness of good and evil that exists in many real world issues. A central plot point revolves around competing interests in an urban renewal project to replace a decaying public housing complex. On one side a big box retailer hoping to open a new store along with low income housing and the other side led by historical preservationists hoping to restore the neighborhood to its pre civil war past with stately mansions and limited low income housing. Unlikely alliances form when the former residents of the housing complex support the big box retailer to embrace low wage jobs rather than no jobs at all, and local minority business owners side against their neighbors out of fear that the chain store will crush their struggling businesses.
The debate reflects the battle against Walmart and other national chains that are seen as destroying the character of towns and neighborhoods across the country. I am personally against the Walmartization of the world, but Fox gives voice to a nagging doubt in the corners of my mind. The fight against Walmart is often led by upper middle-class whites who are unlikely to ever seek a minimum wage job nor need to shop at a Walmart. Creating an image of domestic imperialism in which the upper middle-class assumes that the poor aren't able to comprehend the situation themselves and not that there may be compromises that some people are forced to make to help their families get by. Similar to the global issues around protesting the World Bank because westerners view it as promoting the destruction of the environment and cultures of the third world, when many in the third world just want the opportunity to decide for themselves how to balance prosperity vs. enviro-cultural destruction rather than remain "unspoiled" and poor to assuage the consciences of Westerners who retrospectively see the errors of modernization.
The degrees of right and wrong are further explored with the differences between the hunter and gatherer vampire groups. Jules follows the ancient path of the vampire by leading a solitary existence and hunting for his food every night. Seeking out the homeless, the lonely, those easily forgotten by society for his meal and trying to make their end as quick and painless as possible. He views it as just doing what he needs to in order to survive; the same as a human killing a chicken for dinner. He further justifies his actions by noting his victims are random and that he must work for his meal which always leaves the possibility of escape by his victims. The gatherer groups of vampires have formed much more structured societies as a result of the need to cultivate a ready supply of food. The High Krewe harvest the blood of invalids that they keep in a kind of human greenhouse, never killing their victims but never exactly allowing them to live. Malice's vampire gang distribute heroin so that they create an addicted class of citizen willing to trade their blood for a fix. Again never killing their victims, but still taking away their ability to live freely.
