Bottomfeeder. A novel.

Bottomfeeder is about Phil, a 54 year old man, who works the late shift at a stock photo company, scanning old slides of accidents, murder and happy go lucky catalog models. He lives alone in Queens, no parents, no girlfriend and no friend aside from Shelley who constantly appears out of nowhere when Phil least expects it and burdens him his problems, like the girlfriend who can’t stop giving him head at the worst possible moments. But Phil has a problem on his own, for a 54 year old man he looks like he’s 25, 27 in fact because that was the age he was turned in to a vampire. Feeding on the lowest of scum, Phil has gotten used to the dirty, smelly, scabby necks he has to nourish on as he prays on the homeless and those who no one will miss. This way he keeps out of danger and a low profile, so low in fact that he hasn’t met another vampire since he was turned and even then he didn’t see the bastard coming.
But things don’t stay the same forever, unless you’re Rod Steward and one day a man walks up to him at a bar and outs him. Pete, as the man is called introduces Phil to a whole new life as a vampire and lets him know that there are far more of his like in society than he ever thought. Crowded orgies on the Upper East side and debauchery of every make imaginable. Phil doesn’t really know how to deal with these turn of events and his whole look of life is turned up side down. Does he continue to live in seclusion or does he embrace the neo-Goth, Anne Rice way of living that he has himself mocked so many times?

Fingerman has always been good with words and dialogue in his comics and he continues to put down on paper, hilarious observations and witty anecdotes about the life of a bloodsucker. He looks at the creature from a purely biological way of thinking, throwing out the supernatural mumbo jumbo, like crosses, holy water and even garlic. Nothing kills his vampire other than lack of nourishment and sunlight, which he attributes to an actual illness. It’s also apparent that he has little love for the recent flood of romantic, glamour, vampire novels that have ruined this genre for me. Here he mocks it, the over indulgent velvet and marble floors that are littered with Euro trash creatures of the night who look at rest of the human race as cattle. Fingerman thinks of the vampire society just as our own, with it’s up-sides and flaws, social hierarchies and just about everything a regular Joe is confronted with in his life, even mongoloid bloodsuckers. Yes you read it correctly, Corky has fangs and he's pissed off. As Fangoria so rightly points out the story sometimes reads like a Brett Easton Ellis story, which is a good thing in my book, making it feel like the creature feature version of Less than zero and American Psycho. I would be hard pressed to call this a horror novel in fact. It’s not terribly horrifying, that is, there is no central villain or some thread looming over our character and Fingerman doesn’t try to make it scary. Instead it’s more of a pitch black comedy, making no illusions that Phil is an awkward, sometimes bumbling vampire and there are no Matrix-esque, flowing, black trench coats or designer shades in sight. Just him, his Ikea furniture and his Banana Republic wardrobe. He just happens to be a vampire.
And that’s what I love about the novel, the matter-of-factly way it’s written, lose and flowing.
Fantastic read through and through and throws a whole new light on the Count and his ilk. Highly recommended for horror fans and for people who like their comedy black as the heart of their mother-in-law.

Order the book here.
Bottomfeeder (Amazon)