The Traveling Vampire Show (2001) - Plot & Excerpts
It's time to admit an unpleasant truth.Richard Laymon Novels and I are no longer an item.For a good decade beginning in my teens, Richard Laymon was my go-to horror author. I scoured my local library reading anything and everything by him I could get my hands on. My Dad even joined in the fun. We'd take turns reading his newest and then share our perspectives on what we enjoyed or felt missed the mark. This continued right up until my Dad moved out of home to live with his new partner but I still recall those discussions fondly.Maybe then, my expectations are too high for Laymon's later works like The Travelling Vampire Show. Maybe I'm wanting to be wowed like I was when I was 15 or 16, so that I can drop the novel off to Dad and say "Here you go. Tell me what you think of this one". I certainly wasn't going to do it with Night in the Lonesome October and I won't be doing it for The Travelling Vampire Show either.This is clearly a much loved book and it won the Bram Stoker Award the year it was published (Really?!?!). So my differing opinion will be in the minority, but that's okay. We all know what opinions are like ...Simply put, I found The Travelling Vampire Show to be a mess. For almost three-quarters of its run-time it reads like a Stand By Me wannabe. Except, unlike that novella, there's little quaint or charming about Laymon's characters. The teenage guys are all completely sex-obsessed, and as the novel unfolds, the objects of their attention aren't much better. I was a teenage boy once, and I did my fair share of fantasising and imagining getting with Girl X or Girl Y, but it did not occupy my every second waking thought as it seems to for Laymon's main protagonist, best friend, and pretty much every other character they come across who isn't a parent. So for page after page, we're treated to the main character trying to keep it in his pants whilst repeatedly proclaiming his affection and love for his best female friend. Of course, his feelings are not completely unrequited. Cue awkward silences and lingering glances and so on and so forth.Hey! You might be thinking. Isn't this supposed to be about vampires? They don't sparkle do they? No, they don't, but it does take three-quarters of the novel before the Vampire Show is revealed, and in the meantime we're treated to an odd hodge-podge of other threats the crew have had to deal with over the course of their friendship. There are older bullies (which is Stand by Me-ish but still works), a person in a sheet walking in the middle of nowhere one Halloween night that frightens the crew (ohh-kayy), Cadillac driving kidnappers (err, huh?) and something that may or may not live beneath Janks Field (WTF?). Most of these separate threads come together toward the conclusion in a throw-it-all-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks kind of way that I found to be wholly unsatisfying. Laymon novels are known to meander for much of their word count and then explode into a big pay off through the last 20 or so percent. The problem here is that the payoff is so random and unbelievable, it seemed like it was lifted from another novel - not one in which most of the run time is spent establishing a mostly realistic world that these characters inhabit. Time and again, I found myself gaping at the decision-making or actions of a character, stunned at how ludicrous they seemed. (view spoiler)[Voluntarily opt to jump in a cage with a vampire after it's just gutted its previous adversary? Suuuure! You're hot and I haven't had any. Who cares if I die?... (hide spoiler)]
So you know, I've been a Richard Laymon fan for 30 + yrs now, having gotten into him while searching for a list of books recommended by Stephen King while visiting The Dark Carnival, in Berkeley, CA, my favorite bookstore. The handful of books I have by Mr. Laymon, I've read several times and thought they were good, some frighteningly good ~ with the exception of The Stake which I have tried to read a few times and it just never bit me hard enough to keep me craving for more.So far, my favorite by him was Resurrection Dreams and if you like your horror with humor, you might just love it. Besides, it's about zombies...the best trendy thing since Halloween became a holiday. Funland was eerie, scary, and demented. Midnight's Lair was creepy and memorable. His characters are always entertaining, in a head-shaking sort of way, and fun to watch what materializes for them on the road ahead. ...and to see what's just around that next corner. His dialogue is fitting for the time & place, either steeped with dark humor or hellbent on making you laugh while you silently scream "NO!", and I believe no book of his could reach its end without a character or few being as naïve as feeder fish in a shark pool.His stories are ripe with violence, blood red gore, full of sexual perversions, and horror galore. Perfect if you axe me. ...and why he's been lauded by such notable authors as Stephen King, Brian Keene, Joe R. Lansdale, Jack Ketchup, Dean Koontz, Tim Lebbon, Edward Lee, Bentley Little, Simon Clark, and a slew of others, as one of their fave authors.The Traveling Vampire Show is Laymon's stab at Something Wicked This Way Comes, as if written by a zero conscience Stephen King. Recommended!!!!!*If you like this sorta thing check out my bookshelf: dark-carnival-night-circus.**If you are a book connoisseur like me, track down the 1st print of the paperback with embossed lettering. It's a great book to add to your Dark Carnival/Night Circus Horror collection.
What do You think about The Traveling Vampire Show (2001)?
This is the first Richard Laymon book that I read and the last he wrote before he died. It is an amazing book and won him posthumously the Stoker award of 2001. Though Laymon is not for everyone, his writing is filled with graphic nudity and often quite disturbing violence and images, many of his stories have a coming of age aura to them, and every book of his that I have read I was literally unable to put down until I finished it. He has definitely become one of my favorites. And I cannot recommend this book enough, especially to those unfamiliar with his work.
—Mary
This one and Night in the Lonesome October are my favorite Laymon books. I even bought hard copies after reading them from the library so I could own them. I was awed by his ability to write with book without a plot. But if you're looking for a mature read, I admit Laymon won't be able to help you. I have to be in the right mood for his material. He's a strange dude.
—Gregor Xane
Stephen King said it best: “If you’ve missed Laymon, you’ve missed a treat.”I came across The Traveling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon by fluke. But as soon as I finished it, I read another four or five Laymon books in a row. He is somewhat hit or miss, but The Traveling Vampire Show was a bullseye. Moreover, it is the last book he wrote before he died, and it won him the Bram Stoker award (posthumously) in 2001.Like many of Laymon’s work, this is a great coming of age story involving a bunch of teenagers messing around in the 1960s. Dwight is the protagonist, a good guy with a crush on his friend’s much older sister. Then there’s Rusty, the requisite fat sidekick, and Slim, the young tomboy. The three of them find an ad pinned to a telephone pole for–you guessed it–a traveling vampire show in nearby Janks Field. The catch: It’s at midnight and for adults only.According to the blurb: The Traveling Vampire Show is the tale, told in Dwight’s own words, of what happened to him, Rusty and Slim on that hot summer day they hiked to Janks Field. It’s the story of their friendship and love, their temptations, their betrayals, and their courage as they went where they shouldn’t go, did what they shouldn’t do…and ran into big trouble.If you liked The Body (aka Stand By Me), you should enjoy this one also.
—Jeremy Bates
