It's hard to beat lesbian vampires

Gomez, Jewelle. The Gilda Stories Ann Arbor: Firebrand Books, 1991.

The Gilda Stories is indeed a story about a lesbian vampire, but it's not exactly what you'd expect from a lesbian vampire story. There's very little sex and very little violence, which is in some ways a dissappointment, but was it does offer is striking in its way. It actually has a lot in common with Specimin Days; it's a series of sporadic jumps through time from past to future, although the character is a great deal more consistant. It's the story of Gilda, an African-American woman who is made into a vampire in New Orleans in the 1850s after she escapes from slavery. Each chapter is a new location and a new decade, from San Francisco in the 1890s to off-Broadway in the 1970s and New Mexico in the 2050s as she travels, grows up, and finds her way into a community of those like herself.

One of the greatest things about this novel and other such fantasy, vampire novels, etc is the mythology it creates. Gomez's vampires are not killers, but instead give life for life. In exchange for "their share of the blood" they leave people dreams, the ability or resolution to do something in their lives; they reach into people's brains and find what they need or desire most. They are also stewards of humanity and "living history", fighting war and slavery and ecological destruction when they have the opportunity. One of the first and most important rules in these vampires' lives is to try not to kill, and if they do then to remember the faces of those they've killed.

The vampires are as much as a metaphor for queer community as anything else, a group of people who have long ago lost their biological families and in exchange make homes for each other. The book offers a beautiful sense of what it means to have friends who create a home for you even if you're not always in the same places. Similarly, there's a great deal about conversion, deciding when and how to bring someone into the life, finding the right partner.

So, while I would have liked a little more of the fabulous supernatural vampire or hot lesbian action, it was a pretty great book and I enjoyed it quite a bit.