The Southern Vampire Mysteries (a.k.a The Sookie Stackhouse Novels) by Charlaine Harris

Winter break is a nice time for college students. We get about a month off from school with nothing to do but hang out and work part time. But the greatest part about all this mid-scholastic-year mellowing out is that it provides the opportunity for lots of uninterrupted, guilt-free reading and TV watching. This is not to say we don’t pursue such recreational activities during the semester as well, only that we’re not putting off any homework in order to do so. So if I randomly decide I want to watch the entire first season of the recently debuted HBO series True Blood, for example, I can and a few weeks ago I did just that. Now True Blood itself is an interesting series (starring Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer, and created by Six Feet Under man Alan Ball), with which I have something of a love-hate relationship, but the point of this post is that it inspired me to hunt down and read the series of books it was based on. And that would be the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris.

First, a word in praise of local library networks. This series currently has eight books in it, and is still going strong. (The ninth will be released in May, but I’m fairly certain it won’t be the last.) And while I was definitely interested in reading them all, I wasn’t too keen on making the kind of financial investment it would take to buy them. It had been a while since I’d actually used my local public library, and I’d almost forgotten how convenient (and free!) it was. After a bit of hunting, I was eventually able to track down all eight books and check them out en masse, and was even pretty proud of myself, as if utilizing public resources was some huge personal accomplishment. But, anyways, on to the books themselves.

The series features Sookie Stackhouse, a southern blonde bombshell of a barmaid who lives and works in northern Louisiana, and who just so happens to be telepathic. What’s interesting about these books, and different from many (all?) other vampire novels, is that the living dead have been integrated and (more or less) accepted into modern human society. That doesn’t mean the vampires don’t have their own complicated politics, power struggles and practices of which the humans know nothing, because they sure as heck do. Not to mention the other “supe” (supernatural) communities, such as the weres (werewolves), shifters (shape shifters), witches, and the fairies, all of whom have yet to come out to the humans and admit their existence like the vampires did. Sound complicated? Well, it is. And our telepathic human heroine gets inexorably caught up in all of it. But this complex and imaginative world is something that Charlaine Harris has developed gradually over the course of the series, slowly expanding it with each new installment. In an almost Harry Potter-esque way, she’s taken a clichéd concept and created from it a sprawling and engrossing world that feels very real in spite of its fantasticalness (is that a word?).

Sookie herself makes an okay heroine, but since the books are narrated in the first person her voice is fairly important. She’s pretty blunt and in-your-face, but considering what she’s been through and what she deals with on an average basis I can’t really fault her for it. Growing up as a telepath in a small town like Bon Temps is never easy, and one of the reasons she first gets involved with the vampire community (or at least with one vampire in particular) is because it represents an opportunity for her to deal with her otherness in some way. Another thing about Sookie is the fact that she tends to acquire a lot of admirers within the various supe communities. (Humans guys, on the other hand, tend to avoid her because of the whole telepathy/reputation for craziness thing.) Her seemingly universal appeal would seem a little contrived, except for the fact that she shares a different and interesting relationship with each of her would be lovers, who are also well-rounded characters in and of themselves.

And while we’re on the topic of Sookie’s beaux… Let me just say that I felt a sort of grim satisfaction when her first love interest (you know, the one that sweeps her off her feet in the first book) turns out to be somewhat of a jerk. I’d never really liked him anyways, and I do like how the whole series doesn’t rely on that particular romance as its foundation. I like that while Sookie suffers heartache over him, she learns and grows from the experience, and also starts to navigate the politics and intrigues of the supernatural community on her own. Plus, I gotta admit that one of my favorite things about this series is the character of Eric (local vampire sheriff, former Viking, budding business tycoon, and possessor in spades of joie-de-vivre.) He’s got a pretty complicated relationship with Sookie that nevertheless is always lots of fun, and does a lot more for me than the Bill/Sookie one ever did. They’ve never officially gotten together (except once briefly when he was suffering from magic-induced amnesia), but they’ve definitely got something going on. Pam, Eric’s second-in-command, is also great. Together the two run a vampire bar for tourists in Shreveport that’s called – wait for it – Fangtasia. Ha! Anyways, those two are probably my favorite characters, but there are heaps to choose from.

I do have some reservations about the series, however, and let me just say that it’s definitely not for younger teens. Explicit sex and violence are pretty standard components of many, if not all, of the Sookie books. Call me a prude, but there’s definitely some stuff in there that I could have done without. As for the, uh, caliber shall we say, of the prose, I read a review of these books that compared them to "literary water": no substance or nutrition whatsoever. But I'd argue that they're more like literary kool-aid: yummy and fun, if not as good for you as broccoli, for example. But the fact that I burned through all eight books in two and a half weeks (the first two and a half weeks of a new semester) just goes to show how addictive they are once you really get into them. Now I just have to wait until May 5th so I can read the ninth installment, Dead and Gone.

Just one more thing. I know this post was mainly about the books, but here for your listening pleasure, is the song featured in the opening credits of HBO's True Blood. Kinda sets the tone for the series anyways.

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