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iamson, Milly. The Lure of the Vampire: Gender, Fiction and Fandom from Bram Stoker to Buffy. London: Wallflower Press, 2005. vii + 213 pp. Paper. ISBN 1-904764-40-1. $24.00.
Milly Williamson's The Lure of the Vampire begins by observing that the vampire is not a static image; its metaphorical meaning has changed over time. Even within specific times, according to Williamson, the vampire might not mean the same thing to all people. However, despite the vampire's many forms, it also reinforces a multitude of ideals, "[frightening] us into acquiescence, [reasserting] patriarchy, racial superiority, family values and chaste heterosexuality" (1). After establishing these ground rules, Williamson's text has a split focus-it is a dense and detailed analysis of the vampire in popular culture and also of the fan cultures that have been created as a result. The first half of the text (chapters 1-4) is organized in more-or-less chronological order and focuses on the major texts which have contributed to the vampire's evolving image. The second half (chapters 5-8) examines "the practices of vampire fandom and [offers] a theoretical context for understanding these practices" (97).
The first chapter focuses on Dracula, who, "throughout the twentieth century, [...] has dominated critical interpretations of the vampire" (5). Even someone who knows nothing about vampires knows that name, so it is a logical place to begin. Before presenting her case, she reviews the main critical approaches to Stoker's work. While Williamson does not dismiss those ways of reading, she argues that there are other lenses through which to view Dracula, for example, a working class perspective, and she asserts that these alternate approaches stem from the wide readership a novel like this would have had in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as books became less expensive and more accessible to a larger portion of the general population.
Although Dracula probably remains the most famous vampire, he is by no means the only one-or even the only popular one. Instead of speaking to our fears, as they have typically done, many of today's vampires are "a source of empathy and identification" (29), and this is the second topic Williamson explores. Although the sympathetic vampire seems to be a recent construction, Williamson argues that its roots can be traced to Lord Byron...