Butterfly in the Typewriter

“Relentlessly clever . . . cheeky blend of political satire and gothic thriller . . . This wild ride of a novel proves that each era gets the vampires it deserves.” —The Washington Post

This panoramic fictional oral history begins with one small mystery: the body of a young woman in an Arizona border town disappears from the town morgue. To the young CDC investigator called in to consult with the local police, the case threatens her understanding of medicine. Then, more bodies, dead from an inexplicable disease that solidified their blood, are brought to the morgue, only to also vanish. Soon, the U.S. government — and eventually biomedical researchers, disgruntled lawmakers, and even an insurgent faction of the Catholic Church — must come to terms with what they're too late to stop: an epidemic of vampirism that will sweep first the United States, and then the world.

With heightened strength and beauty and a steady diet of fresh blood, these changed people, or “Gloamings,” rapidly rise to prominence in all aspects of modern society. As new communities of Gloamings arise, society is divided, and popular Gloaming sites come under threat from a secret terrorist organization. But when a charismatic and wealthy businessman, recently turned, runs for political office — well, all hell breaks loose.

Told from the perspective of key players, A People's History of the Vampire Uprising is an exhilarating, genre-bending debut.

“Well worth a bite . . . beguiling.” —USA Today

“[A] zippy read via a clever series of narratives, interviews, historical documents, and newspaper reports.” —The Boston Globe

“Strikingly original . . . Daring, exciting.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“An absolutely unique . . . brilliant sideways take on the vampire genre.” —Carsten Stroud, author of Niceville