Bride of the Fat White Vampire (Book)

Dread Central Staff |

Sep 8, 2005

It seems today that no successful movie can be made without at least one sequel. As everyone knows, most sequels do not live up to the promise of the original story. Bride of the Fat White Vampire, however, is the exception that proves the rule. While it is told in a different style than its predecessor, this is one sequel that lives up to the name and can keep the reader enthralled until the very end.

Bride opens up eight months after the previous book ended with everyone’s favorite rotund bloodsucker having transformed himself into 187 large white rats in an attempt to gain peace in his afterlife and to help him forget about the loss of his beloved Maureen. However, a string of vampire mutilations causes the High Krewe of Vlad Tepes, a snobby group of aristocratic vampires, to enlist the aid of his cross-dressing former sidekick, Doodlebug, to track down the rats and somehow convince them to merge again so Jules can solve the crimes. It goes off almost without a hitch as Doodlebug manages to catch all but one rat, which turns out to be Jules’ most treasured and sensitive organ. Now a eunuch, Jules attempts to solve the mutilations, find his wayward appendage, throw in with his former mortal enemies, and somehow keep his mind on his business, all the while lamenting the loss of Maureen. It’s enough to give even an obese vampire the blues.

Whereas Fat White Vampire Blues combined humor and horror in a twisted mix, Bride reads more like a combination of Anne Rice and Dashiell Hammett. Fox masterfully captures the mood of the old pulp mysteries but does not skimp on the horror. Still included are flashes of humor, so the reader spends one moment gasping in terror and the next gasping for air from laughing.

The only drawbacks in this novel are easily forgiven. First, Jules and his once mortal enemy, Preston, come to an uneasy truce and then become a mirror of Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy far to quickly. Hostility in this instance should have been cultivated just a bit longer. And the ending, without spoiling anything, does have a tendency to wash over the reader, making him unsure of what just happened or why. However, by the time the ending of the book comes around, the reader is so hooked, he’ll follow along in the great fun of it.

Bride of the Fat White Vampire is a worthy sequel. It neither outshines nor blemishes the original as it stands on its own as a good solid piece of fiction. Moreover, it makes the reader crave more stories involving Jules Duchon, if for no other reason than to see what kind of bumbling misadventures the fat man can get into next.

Bride of the Fat White Vampire
By Andrew Fox
Ballantine Books, 2004
429 pages

4 out of 5

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