The Vampire Gideon’s Suicide Hotline and Halfway House for Orphaned Girls

Though the real depth of its characters’ mental and emotional suffering remains unexplored, Katz’s bleak yet hopeful vampire tale still has a good deal to recommend it—most notably vampire Gideon himself, a lost, unexpectedly poetic soul who decides to fill the void of his own pain by attempting to help others. Gideon, long dead and slightly decaying, maintains an unofficial suicide hotline, offering help and insight from the safety of his sub-basement. When Margot, a 16-year-old girl being abused by her brutal foster father, calls in, Gideon rescues her and becomes her guardian in the process. Soon Gideon realizes helping Margot grow up might force him to confront the skeletons in his own coffin. Katz (Descendants) uses the companionship between Gideon and Margot to give the story a firm emotional foundation, but Gideon’s narrative arc is advanced largely via the suffering of women, which does a disservice to an otherwise strong story. (Oct.)