Books by and for independent women

Zillah from Lost Souls

I first read Poppy Z. Brite when I was a teenage goth, mad as a hatter and obsessed with androgynous boys with dyed hair and more make-up than me. (Which back then was saying something. Purple lipstick, pencilled-in eyebrows, thick eyeliner and foundation and red eyeshadow that my Mum used to tell me made me look I had syphilis. And that was just what I wore to school.)

To me, Poppy Z. Brite seemed insanely cool. She had a fancy name, she’d published a biography of my then-heroine Courtney Love, and she wrote novels about androgynous, bisexual and incestuous vampires who spent their days eating sweets, drinking chartreuse and slutting it around New Orleans. We were a match made in heaven.

Her 1994 debut novel Lost Souls was the first to feature vampire trio Zillah, Twig and Molochai. They’re gluttons for blood, booze, and sex; driving a grubby van across America to get to New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras whilst sexing up each other and anyone else they can get their sharpened talons on along the way. Although much modern horror like True Blood, Twilight and Being Human has got us drooling over saucy and sexually-voracious vamps, back then this was a revelation to Brite’s young adult audience. Rather than fusty old Victorian vampires in frilly shirts and velvet capes, Zillah and co were vampire rockstars.

In my unhinged fifteen-year-old mind, Zillah looked like Brian Molko from Placebo (who I had a whopper of a crush on for my entire adolescence). Except, if it’s possible, more promiscuous and with better hair and make-up. In Lost Souls, Zillah is described as having crazy green eyes, purple, green and gold streaks in his hair, pierced nipples and sharp black painted nails. A.k.a. perfect dirty-daydreaming material for sexually-frustrated emo-kids the world over.

Lost Souls is published by Penguin, and costs £5.47, from Amazon. Tell us your favourite fictional character in the comments!

Post by Jane Bradley