Author: Amy Chu
Illustrations: Soo Lee
First published: 2023
Contains spoilers
The Blurb: Before Dracula, before Nosferatu, there was... CARMILLA.
At the height of the Lunar New Year in 1990s New York City, an idealistic social worker turns detective when she discovers young, homeless LGBTQ+ women are being murdered and no one, especially the police, seems to care.
A series of clues points her to Carmilla's, a mysterious nightclub in the heart of her neighborhood, Chinatown. There she falls for the next likely target, landing her at the center of a real-life horror story--and face-to-face with illusions about herself, her life, and her hidden past.
Inspired by the gothic novel that started the vampire genre and layered with dark Chinese folklore, this queer, feminist murder mystery is a tale of identity, obsession and fateful family secrets.
The review: Moved to the twentieth century and America, this graphic novel was inspired by Carmilla but also features the book within it. Strangely, in this New York, it is only available in a rare book section of the library (so the protagonist, Athena, steals it to read it, rather than picking the novella up from any good bookstore). The book becomes almost a reference work rather than story as young women are found murdered and Athena becomes obsessed with finding out by who.
The sense of othering is embedded in the novel with Athena’s Chinese heritage and lesbianism offering lenses that the vampire 'other' stands against, and her sexuality mirrors the original story but also makes this a great queer story. During the story Athena discovers, from her grandfather, that she is from a line of guengsi (a variant spelling of jiangshi/kyonsi) hunters – we see her watching a Chinese vampire film at one point.
The vampire is Carmilla, from the novel, but the naming convention of anagrams does not hold, and she uses a non-anagrammatical pseudonym. We do see a transformation, but it is into a (Chinese style) dragon rather than a cat.
The artwork is competent, suits the story but wasn’t my favourite style unfortunately. That said it will appeal to many, I am sure. The story itself was interesting and as Amy Chu has done a further story I hope it does explore Athena’s heritage as that has much potential. 7.5 out of 10.
In Paperback @ Amazon US
In Paperback @ Amazon UK
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