THE TRAVELING VAMPIRE SHOW

By: Jason Bovberg
Date: Friday, July 14, 2000

The allure of Richard Laymon's fiction is difficult to deconstruct. Whenever I finish one of his many rollicking entertainments, I take a moment to reflect on the things in the book that so enraptured me. Perhaps I shouldn't think about it so much. One of the joys of reading a Laymon story is that you yank out your too-critical eye, plop it wetly on the nightstand and rapidly flip those pages in full-bore guilty-pleasure mode.

Some of my greatest moments in reading have come wrapped up in boards that bear the name of Richard Laymonthe nasty gore of Flesh, the perversity of Funland, the teasing kink of The Stake. His short fictionsome of which you'll find assembled in A Good, Secret Place and later this year in the U.K. collection Dreadful Taleshas provided equally satisfying moments. And though his later work has muted the outright horror and eye-popping lascivity that lovingly characterized his earlier titles, there's a certain charm and even suspense in Laymon's horny and often sadistic scenarios.

One of Laymon's more obvious strengths is his ear for dialogue, from the mouths of characters so real they might recall memories of old friends you had in high school. Another strength is his sly humor. Yet another is his frank depiction of sexualitya Laymon trademark that lulls you into a very human story only to thrust you unblinking into supernatural mayhem. You'll find all these strengths, in abundance, in his latest offering.

The Traveling Vampire Show takes place in the span of a single day in 1963. It's about three teenagersour protagonist Dwight, the fantastically annoying Rusty and the pseudonymous Slim, the feminine object of both boys' affectionswho find out about a mysterious vampire show due to arrive in town that night. Over the course of 530 pages, we follow along with the trio's misadventures, scares, bouts of paranoia and many brushes with lust. See, as the gang searches for a way to attend the over-18 show, they become convinced that the show's bloodthirsty organizers are after themfor a little kiddie hors d'oeuvre, perhaps.

My only complaint about The Traveling Vampire Show lies with a facet of the storya secondary characterthat I won't divulge here. Suffice it to say, after feeling the paranoia and fear of these kids for 400 pages, I thought that a revelation late in the game lessened what came before it. However, those 400 pages remain a showcase for Laymon's strengths. I was most impressed by Laymon's handling of the budding sexual relationship between Dwight and Slimthe realistic teenage fumblings, the rampant hormones and the awkward silences. The truth of the emotion attending those passages is palpable. Additionally, as with most of Laymon's other work, these characters are fascinated by clothing and by what it covers. Dwight, in his first-person narrative, keeps a constant eye out for glimpses of Slim's flesh, and he provides a running commentary of when and where and why his own and his friends' shirts come off. Laymon uses the device throughout his fiction, symbolic of our fascination with nudity.


The book's depiction of people and places is nice. The characterization of Rusty as a repellent little turd might go a little over-the-edge, but his comeuppance is delightful. The setting of Janks Field, where the vampire show will take place, is nicely wrought and even disturbing. Laymon's conjuring of Dwight's sister-in-law, Lee, as the one sane adult character, is perfectand her ordeal at book's end is all the more shocking because of her constant voice of reason.

The novel's climax, which occurs over the final 100 pages, is a humdinger. Here's where Laymon lets out all the stops. Suddenly, The Traveling Vampire Show becomes an outrageous, over-the-top sex-and-horror fest that should please all those fans who can't get enough of the splatterpunk who still writhes inside Laymon. And even though this climax giddily leaps beyond the boundaries of good taste (another Laymon strength, in my opinion) and requires that you suspend your disbelief with more effort than usual, it's a payoff that'll please any jaded horror buff. The fate of one of the main characters actually startled me. When it happened, I looked skyward and cheered.

Laymon's no-holds-barred ending makes The Traveling Vampire Show a swell read, well worth your buck, but the path to that climax is a long one. When I set the book down, my most vivid memories of it were the titular vampire show (of course) and the tentative feelings between a boy and a girl.

The Traveling Vampire Show, by Richard Laymon. 534 p. Fiction. $40. ISBN: 1-58767-000-3