Drawing Blood [Hardcover]

Poppy Brite (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1993

Twenty years after his tortured cartoonist father killed his mother and siblings, cartoonist Trevor McGee returns to the scene of the crime, determined to face the demons of the past and the dark force threatening to destroy him.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Brite ( Lost Souls ) comes into her own in this second novel that should establish her as not only an adept in the horror genre, but also as a singularly talented chronicler of her generation. Five-year-old Trevor McGee wakes one morning to find that his father, cartoonist Bobby McGee, has murdered his mother and younger brother, then hanged himself. Twenty years later, Trevor, now a cartoonist himself, returns to Missing Mile, N.C. (a fictional town also featured in Lost Souls ), and the now-haunted house of his youth for answers: Why did his father choose to spare his life? What prompted the loss of creativity which Trevor himself now dreads? Meanwhile, 19-year-old Zachary Bosch, himself the tormented result of disturbed parents, arrives in Missing Mile on the lam for computer hacking. The two fall in love, and, with Zach's help, Trevor finds that he can reach the horrible but liberating truth the house holds for him. Though subplots and secondary characters sometimes hamper the pace of the main plot line, they do serve to evoke a certain 20-something, cyberpunk-era zeitgeist that resonates with the concerns of contemporary youth. Author tour.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Zach and Trevor are young men who fall in love in a haunted house where Trevor's father murdered his family and killed himself, sparing only Trevor. An underground cartoonist like his dead father, Trevor has returned to the crumbling house in rural Missing Mile, North Carolina, to learn why his father spared him. Zach is a hacker on the run. He is a popular and exotic extrovert while Trevor is a painfully introverted virgin. With the help of Zach and psilocybin, Trevor confronts his father in Birdland, the comic town that his father created, even as the FBI traces Zach to Missing Mile. Drawing Blood is a flawed but compelling story. It's labeled "psychological horror," but the horror gives way to a suspenseful, offbeat gay romance. The first half, where Brite's powerful characterizations and settings are drawn, is hard to put down. But the haunted house is tame, and Trevor's struggle to learn to love Zach lingers overlong in homoerotic material, straining the momentum. The FBI arrives in time, however, to lend some suspense to the ending. Recommended for public libraries.
- Robert C. Moore, DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Co. Information Svcs., North Billerica, Mass.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 373 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Press; First Edition. 1 in number line edition (October 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385308957
• ISBN-13: 978-0385308953
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (116 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,772,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm the author of eight novels, three short story collections, two nonfiction books, and some miscellanea. My earlier books -- LOST SOULS, DRAWING BLOOD, WORMWOOD, EXQUISITE CORPSE, THE LAZARUS HEART, ARE YOU LOATHSOME TONIGHT? (a.k.a. SELF-MADE MAN) -- tend toward the twisted, horrific, and frequently erotic. I still have a definite interest in this sort of thing, but my writing doesn't reflect it as much these days. My recent books -- THE VALUE OF X, THE DEVIL YOU KNOW, LIQUOR, PRIME, and the forthcoming SOUL KITCHEN -- all have to do (in varying degrees) with a couple of young New Orleans chefs named Rickey and G-man, their families, and their restaurant, Liquor. I've been married to a chef for 16 years now and he's still bringing me new stories. We lost our home in Hurricane Katrina, but we are back in New Orleans and doing our best to help rebuild the city. I'll note new books, anthology appearances and such here, but to read my day-to-day blog, please visit http://docbrite.livejournal.com/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brite surpasses Rice...and does it with fewer words, March 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Drawing Blood (Mass Market Paperback)

I stumbled onto Poppy Brite quite by accident. I read the cover summary of her first book, "Lost Souls?" and thought it sounded interesting. I read that title in two days. Luckily, her second novel, "Drawing Blood," had just been released. I picked it up and finished it in one day. When I put it down, my first thought was, "Good, but not as good as 'Lost Souls'." But as the days went on, it was "Drawing Blood" that continued to reverberate in my mind. I have now read it over 10 times and find more depth with every reading. Brite has the ability to create characters that feel as if they are your best friends, and creates locales with the mastery of a poet. A big Anne Rice fan, I was amazed by Brite's ability to accomplish far more with her characters and settings with less verbosity. Never once did I skim any of Brite's books. Don't get me wrong, I am still an Anne Rice fan, but with Anne Rice, I often found myself skipping over pages that detailed one cornerstone of a building. Also, unlike Rice, Brite does not mince words about her characters' lives. Whereas Rice hints at same sex attraction between her characters, Brite creates no allusion...her characters are out-and-out gay just as her straight characters are definately straight. "Drawing Blood" is an amazing character study, an endearing love story, and a treatise on psychological horror. Think of it as "The Shining" of the nineties with a distinctly GenX flavor.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite Poppy book..., October 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Drawing Blood (Mass Market Paperback)

I recently re-read this book, and I was amazed all over again at how good it is. Okay, Poppy may very well be the most obsessed writer since David Goodis (I'm not sure she could write a book without going into her manias about "beautiful gay boys in love" and how cool it is to get drunk and smoke pot and overglorification of the whole superficial goth scene), but she writes so incredibly well that it's pretty easy to overlook those things. Poppy's the kind of writer who makes you jealous... if you write, it's inspirational to read her because you continually run across a finely-turned sentence or a certain description that just floors you, and you want to try and top it. And, you usually can't. I'm now re-reading _Lost Souls_ and enjoying it, too, even though I think this book is still the best thing she's written so far. I reccommend all her books, and if you like Poppy, then you're sure to love Caitlin R. Kiernan as well - _Silk_ is incredible. Poppy's not for everyone, I think - it's strong stuff in many ways - but if you can handle it, you'll be well-rewarded.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read, May 7, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Drawing Blood (Mass Market Paperback)

I think I must be one of those few poeple who like Drawing Blood better than Lost Souls, Poppy Z Brite's much more touted debut novel, although Lost Souls was very good also. Lost Souls was basically a coming of age story spiced up with some twisted vampire lore. Drawing Blood, on the other hand, is a love story; and I've always been a real 'sucker' for a good love story, gay or straight. As always, Brite's characters are vividly drawn and colorful, and her prose is so smooth and mellow that you hate to see the book end.

I've read where some have criticize the over abundance of gay sex loving detailed in this book. But, hey, I'd read those any day over that terrible scene of Steve raping Anne in Lost Souls.