Review of Night’s Edge—A Vampire Pandemic

You’re not sick of pandemic books yet, are you? Liz Kerin uses the premise of a vampire pandemic—and the restrictions and lockdowns that come with it—to explore complicated family relationships in her sophomore horror novel Night’s Edge. The book, which follows a young woman who has devoted her life to being caretaker to her infected mother, comes out tomorrow, June 20.

Mia was ten years old when the Saratov’s syndrome outbreak swept through America and her mother Izzy was infected. Mia had to grow up fast to take care of a mother who could no longer go out in daylight and regularly craved fresh blood. For thirteen years, Mia has drawn her own blood daily for her mother to drink, kept Izzy’s infection a secret, and protected her from being discovered by the authorities and carted off to one of the Sara centers from which no patient has ever reemerged. But now Mia is twenty-three and she’s never been allowed to have her own life—never had friends, let alone a boyfriend … or girlfriend. She doesn’t have any hobbies that aren’t shared with Izzy. She almost never drinks, despite her mother owning a bar, and she even avoids caffeine out of concern for the allergic reaction it can cause in Saras (the colloquial term for those suffering from Saratov’s). Then Izzy starts acting cagey and Mia begins to suspect that she has reconnected with Devon, the sketchy boyfriend who first infected her all those years ago. The man they fled from Salt Lake City to Tuscon to get away from, and who Izzy promised Mia she would never have to see again. Well, if Izzy can break her promises maybe it’s time for Mia to indulge in some long-delayed rebellion. Mia starts spending time with Jade, an alluring punk rock musician she meets at the coffee shop near her work, and begins to imagine a future for herself for the first time. A future where her entire life doesn’t have to revolve around her needy and mercurial mother. The easy routine between mother and daughter devolves into secrets and lies as Mia and Izzy barrel headfirst down opposing paths that are bound to come together in a bloody collision.

I’m noticing a trend lately of horror authors using vampires (and sometimes zombies) to process the COVID-19 pandemic. A few months ago, I read Lucy A. Snyder’s Sister, Maiden, Monster, which is set in a near future where a monster-making pandemic follows close on the heels of the one we’re all familiar with. Night’s Edge takes a different approach, creating a sort of alternate history of the last few decades. In this world, an obscure illness dubbed Saratov’s syndrome cropped up in Russia in the 1990s, but was kept quiet by the government until it suddenly blossomed into a worldwide pandemic in 2010. Although COVID-19 doesn’t seem to exist in this universe, the lockdowns, restrictions, and testing that follow the Saratov’s outbreak are certainly informed by recent history. The chapters of this book alternate between the immediate aftermath when Izzy was first turned at the beginning of the outbreak and the present day over a decade later. These dual timelines highlight both the chaos and confusion of a scary new disease and the new societal norms created as people adjust over time to a world-changing event. 

And wherever new norms arise, you can be sure that there will be new countercultures reacting against the new status quo. We see two different versions of this in Night’s Edge. One is a counterculture movement consisting of infected Saras and spearheaded by Devon, who seeks to reframe the narrative that they are chronic sufferers of a debilitating disease to a philosophy that frequently crops up in vampire fiction: that they are the next step in human evolution, an elite group of superhumans. Devon encourages his followers to live proudly as Saras, indulge their violent urges, and intentionally spread their infection in order to “turn” others. The other subculture we see is the underground music world, which operates on an ethos of radical trust and personal responsibility rather than employing the public safety measures adopted by the rest of society, such as blood scanners at the entrance to every business and event. Jade is involved with an illicit traveling music festival called Cloak and Dagger, which first sprung up to flout the curfews and lockdowns when musicians and their fans grew desperate enough to risk their lives for their art. Of course, if you’ve ever seen the film Queen of the Damned, you’ll know that the combination of vampires and wild desert rock concerts probably isn’t going to end well….

Though Night’s Edge is ostensibly a book about a vampire pandemic, it’s really about so much more, including a queer awakening, finding yourself as an adult when you never got to be a child, and the toxic, codependent relationship between a mother and daughter. If that appeals to you, you can find Night’s Edge on shelves tomorrow at your favorite local retailer or order it online and support The Gothic Library in the process using this Bookshop.org affiliate link. Once you’ve read it, let me know what you think in the comments below!