The energy of the struggles of those times sustained her, somehow.

She felt their hatred as personally as any mortal. She had been attacked more than once by men determined that she die, but of course she had not. The memories of her master’s lash as well as her mother’s face, legends of the Middle Passage, lynchings she had not been able to prevent, images of black women bent over scouring brushes – all fueled her ambition. Her connection to the daylight world came from her blackness. She didn’t believe a past could, or should, be so easily discarded. The inattention of her contemporaries to some mortal questions, like race, didn’t suit her. the afterword in my edition is by alexis pauline gumbs which was also so beautiful and definitely worthwhile reading too if you have access to it! – about black feminist legacies and the implications of writing a queer black woman vampyre both in the 1990s & in 2016 or so when a new edition was published. The way the vampires in this novel drink blood is one of my favourite things about it because it’s so reciprocal and caring, basically a form of mutual aid between vampires & non vampires and not just a transactional or sometimes violent relationship. The changes that are made to traditional vampire lore/representation (which is so heterosexual usually) allow the novel to explore a whole wealth of meanings and experiences normally forgotten or seen as unimportant. The way this novel animates history, demonstrating it’s ongoing effect on the present/future as well as community, especially black queer community, through the figure of the vampire is wonderful and inspiring.

We then track through time, in and out of different people’s lives and into the future, but always following Gilda’s path. Jewelle Gomez writes so tenderly about Gilda, the main character, who becomes a vampire after escaping slavery in the south in the 1850s. This is my favourite vampire story i’ve ever read and i’m sad it took me so long to get to it because it’s a delight.

The gilda stories