Audiobook review: The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman

 

The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman

9 hours Audible Audio

First published October, 2014

 Every year when Judge Marc Rothenberg and I podcast for our favorite reads of the year this is one of the experiences I was sold on. Marc said to listen to the audiobook and I have to say his recommendation was on the money. I am sure this is a fine book to read but the audiobook available on the libby app as an audiobook (I am sure audible too) is a great time. Christopher Buehlman is not an author I knew before but he is certainly on my radar now.

Buehlman reads the novel and after just a few minutes I saw why. He knows the voice of his character who does the narration, but he also does wonderful voices and performances of all the characters, giving the whole novel a bit of extra storyteller vibe. It feels like you are sitting with Joey being told a story. 

The secret is, vampires are real and I am one.
The secret is, I’m stealing from you what is most truly yours and I’m not sorry—"

That conversational narrative is how the story is told. Joey’s saga as a vampire started in the Great Depression but it comes to a head in a very specific time.

“New York City in 1978 is a dirty, dangerous place to live. And die. Joey Peacock knows this as well as anybody—he has spent the last forty years as an adolescent vampire, perfecting the routine he now enjoys: womanizing in punk clubs and discotheques, feeding by night, and sleeping by day with others of his kind in the macabre labyrinth under the city’s sidewalks.

The subways are his playground and his highway, shuttling him throughout Manhattan to bleed the unsuspecting in the Sheep Meadow of Central Park or in the backseats of Checker cabs, or even those in their own apartments who are too hypnotized by sitcoms to notice him opening their windows. It’s almost too easy.”

The Lesser Dead is a character-driven piece of vampire fiction that is less scary as it constantly unsettling. I enjoyed the character work. Each minute of the audiobook has moments of deep character details. It keeps the story flowing and interesting. The events and the plot are almost secondary to the exploration of Joey and the various vampires.

“If you’re looking for a story about nice people doing nice things, this isn’t for you. You will be burdened with an unreliable narrator who will disappoint and repel you at every turn.
Still with me?
Too bad for you.
I can’t wait to break your heart.”

Sure the life they have built in the tunnels and the mechanics of how vampire life works in this novel are interesting. The way Joey got on the bad side of the Irish vampire who turned him was probably the most interesting element for me.

Also, most importantly the book is funny. I laughed a lot.

“You see why I’m such a good vampire? We’re all lying, devious bastards, not like werewolves, if there are werewolves, whose MO is, “Hi, I’m a werewolf, surprise! And fuck you!” No, we lurk. We’re lurkers.”
 
There might be better examples but the book is laced with funny observations that reminded me of the Stephen Graham Jones werewolf novel Mongrels. The Lesser Dead is a good novel but a great audiobook if that distinct makes sense then you will understand what I am trying to tell you.