Vampyre Lawyer

Count Dracula gives up his evil ways, moves to modern day America and joins the Techno Zombies Goth rock band as he searches for and finds a personal lawyer using his supernatural instincts.

Populated with loveable rogues, scheming lawyers, and thieving gypsies this comic, tragic, and twisted tale will enthrall until long past the conclusion of the final act.

"Imagine you're a Vampyre. Yes, with a ""y."" You're very good at what you do, but you're tired of the Dusk-to-Dawn Life and you wish to give up your evil ways. So you time travel 150 years into the future, join a Goth rock band, move to the USA, and begin a search for a lawyer to represent you as you defend yourself against persecution and the unconscionable inaccuracies found in Anne Rice's blockbuster novel, Interview with a Vampire. How do you think such a journey would work out for you?

George Parker gives us just such a character in his hilarious send-up, Vampyre Lawyer. In this highly entertaining novel, no less a personage than Count Dracula himself descends upon 21st century New Orleans and, while many in The Big Easy do not even notice such an anomalous individual on the street, his presence and, in particular, his quest for a virtuous attorney set in motion a preposterous but uproarious set of events involving a psychopathic prosecutor in the District Attorney's office, a mysterious tailor, illegal Romanian refugees, a refined Mob boss with a taste for orchids and the classics, a wet-behind-the-ears newlywed law school graduate, a vulturous journalist and, of course the internationally acclaimed music group the Techno Zombies.

We begin to suspect we are about to be ""had"" early in the story, when the Count's home is being burned down by local peasants angered by his nocturnal habits, and his faithful manservant Igor has been overcome by smoke. Igor urges Dracula to flee the country without him:

""No, it's not for me sir,"" he coughed, and anyway the villagers will save me, they always do.""

""It's true,"" replied the Count. ""They appreciate your simple honesty, as do I.""

The farcical characters ""Drac"" encounters during his sojourn in another century, from the Zombies' guitar player Shelley Byron to the Madame Defarge-type figure Momma Momar and villainous D.A. Richard Bleddon (get it? - it's a vampire story), affirm our suspicion that we are in the lively presence of Chauceresque satire. The plot's vignettes, including an organized crime board meeting conducted in accordance with parliamentary procedure, a miraculous cure in a hospital operating room, a flawlessly planned and incredibly bungled ""hit"" and a bizarre knitting needle attack by an old woman do likewise. Unexpectedly, once ensconced in New Orleans, Drac himself hovers on the edges of the story as the nutty characters affected, directly or not, by his arrival in their town romp all over one another in a tangled riot of criminal activity, cover ups, miscues, magic, mayhem, and innocent misunderstandings, all of which eventually give Drac the opportunities he seeks to redeem his troublesome past forever. Right up to the denouement in a flour coated pasta mill, complete with a very theatrical curtain call involving the entire cast, Parker has provided a laugh on every page.

But there's another funny thing about this book: certain passages that appear right there in the midst of the mirth are not funny at all. There are downright poetic lines wherein Drac reflects on music and dance. The author has included lyrics of Techno Zombie songs, which are far superior in their style and originality to those of most pop songs today:

Like the howling moan of the Wolfman

like the beating of Dracula's wings

like a nightmare that leaves you suspended

in the pit as the pendulum swings

like King Kong climbing up the Empire State

while his heart is pounding with fright

there's a nameless fear in the shadows

there's a monster in my mind tonight. . .

And he also inserts a moving description of the function of dance in the life of the human animal:

To dance is like knocking on the door to eternity. All of the spirits and angels love to dance, it's the universal language of joy, and joy is the very heart of enlightenment . . . The seasons dance with time in an endless pas de deux. The ocean dances with the moon, the sun dances with the earth, and the stars dance with space.

We readers also are told, fairly often and rather explicitly, of Drac's and the others' musings on good versus evil, the dark versus the light, and man's life-long search for his true self. As the Techno Zombies eloquently put it:

. . . somewhere there's just gotta be

an answer to every question that you have,

but finding it ain't easy,

you gotta search through a lotta crap.

Whatever Mr. Parker's intentions for these passages, they ring true and do not feel in the least ironic. If no one has yet done so, perhaps Mr. Parker will do us the favor of actually setting to music and recording the lyrics he has incorporated into this otherwise light-hearted escapade, so that one day we may dance to them.

Vampyre Lawyer is not literature, nor does it pretend to be. It contains a few malapropisms and capriciously placed commas, but they don't matter. It's a rockin' fun story of a type sorely needed in our era of financial distress, unemployment, world terrorism, cynicism and PC extremes. This is a book to read during a bumpy flight, to while away a long wait at the dentist's, or to carry with you to an IRS audit. If you are looking for a moody, spine tingling vampire story you may be disappointed. But if you love a good lawyer joke, get tired of the pretenses we must endure in daily life, and want a respite from feeling bad about your little failures, you will love this book. Its humor will brighten any day and its perspective will lighten your heart. It's silly, it's endearing, it's very human, and it will make you laugh out loud."