If Suzy McKee Charnas’ 1980 vampire novel THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY is such a classic of the genre, why haven’t I heard of it before? Now that it’s been reissued in paperback by Orb, I can echo all the praise that’s been heaped upon it for years. Yeah, it’s that good, worth devouring in a single weekend afternoon.

Vampire novels are so “been there, done that,” but this — for 1980 and for 2008 — isn’t the same old, same old. For one thing, its bloodsucker — 50something college professor Dr. Edward Weyland is the only creature of his kind. He has no fangs, but a tiny stinger underneath his tongue that becomes “erect” upon the promise of fresh blood. It administers a slight sedative to put his “victims” to sleep while he sucks their arms (his part of preference), and he only takes what he needs, thus leaving them perfectly healthy and alive.

Rather than being a swanky, showy count-type who’s a hit with the ladies, he’s quiet, private and does little for entertainment other than the occasional viewing of THE INCREDIBLE HULK. Sex is unimportant to him; feeding is what it’s all about, and he’ll take that from man or woman.

The novel is comprised of five distinct parts, which I assume were created separately rather than at once. Each stand alone, yet somehow form a nice whole, like a puzzle whose pieces require only a little force to snap together. The first finds Weyland at his home base of the college, where he teaches anthropology and runs the sleep research center. He attempts to recruit the faculty club’s cook/maid as a subject, but she turns him down. However, he doesn’t take rejection well.

What happens forces him to flee campus, and the second part picks up after Weyland has crashed his car in the escape. Unfortunately for him, he winds up not in a hospital, but a makeshift cell in a brownstone of an enterprising man who sells vampire-viewing tickets to all his friends. The man’s young nephew takes pity on Weyland, especially when his uncle brings in a Satanist who has big plans for their prisoner.

As part of his bid to go back to work, Weyland must be deemed mentally sound by a shrink, which comprises the middle section. His female doctor secretly wants to turn his story of vampirism into a book, but lives start to be threatened by his presence. As tense as the first two sections are, this part acts as sort of a breather, but still continues the tone and suspense. My only problem with it is that a decision the doc makes at the end of her story seems unbelievable to me.

The fourth section finds Weyland attending an opera with a tour group. It’s the only true weak spot of the far-weaving TAPESTRY, because other than showing to what lengths Weyland is willing to go, it serves no purpose and doesn’t move the story forward. In fact, most of it simply describe the onstage action, which is not interesting.

Things pick back up, however, for the final section, in which our academic bloodsucker returns to campus, and elements from earlier sections all come full circle, allowing Charnas to provide closure. By the haunting final page, we feel like we’ve been right alongside Weyland in his trips through the ringer. He’s neither loved nor hated by us, but is sympathetic.

All the attention garnered by Anne Rice’s INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE should be cut in half and given to Charnas’ TAPESTRY. The two are in some ways similar, but this one is pulled off with more storytelling skill. Absent of preening drama, she’s able to get to the heart of her character, examining what it would be like to be the world’s only vampire, cursed but unable to pass that curse along. Although it’s not scary, this thrilling, unsettling novel is certainly one of the vampire genre’s strongest, and deserving of a mass audience. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.