‘Dracula’ brought vampires into the limelight — let’s talk about the best literary blood suckers since

What is the appeal of the vampire novel — and how did this burgeoning horror subgenre begin? Silvia might point to John Polidori’s 1819 novel “The Vampyre,” inspired by the same ghost storytelling night on Lake Geneva that gave us Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” Lavie might counter with Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla,” the progenitor of lesbian vampires. But there’s no denying it was Bram Stoker who, with 1897’s “Dracula,” dragged the vampire into the limelight. From “Salem’s Lot” to “Twilight,” “The Historian,” “Let the Right One In,” Anne Rice’s Lestat and Charlaine Harris’s Bill Compton, vampires are everywhere. So come with us as we bid you welcome, Renfields! Let’s talk about the wonderful bloodsuckers of literature.

Lavie: I feel you have an unfair advantage, in that you actually wrote a vampire novel and I didn’t! I know whatever we do people will say, “How could you not mention ... ?” So, yes, Richard Matheson’s “I Am Legend” (1954) is a vampire novel — a very good one. But we like to focus on books that have gotten less notice. So, from Russia, there’s Sergei Lukyanenko’s “Night Watch” (and its sequels), translated by Andrew Bromfield. The book isn’t about vampires exclusively, but the ones that are there are great. In modernday Moscow, supernatural creatures battle each other, some taking the side of the dark and some of the light. Huge bestsellers in Russia, I came to them through the two Timur Bekmambetov film adaptations.

Meanwhile, I think it was you who turned me on to Kazuki Sakuraba’s “A Small Charred Face” (2017), translated by Jocelyne Allen, a terrific Japanese vampire novel told in three parts. It’s very different from typical Western fare — not only because of the biology of the vampires, but the tone of the book — and all the better for it. So is José Luis Zárate’s “The Route of Ice and Salt,” translated by David Bowles, the Mexican novella you managed to bring into English recently through your micro-press, Innsmouth Free Press. I thought it was wonderful, a queer exploration of Dracula’s journey on board ship to England that is full of haunting Gothic imagery.

Silvia: So many of our conversations involve me asking: “Have you read this vampire book?” But if you are not a vampire junkie, where do you start? I recommend anthologies as a gateway. Ellen Datlow edited several of these, including, “Blood and Other Cravings” (2011) and “Blood is Not Enough” (1989). Datlow also famously ran Omni magazine, where a vampire novella titled “Carrion Comfort” by Dan Simmons first appeared. It was expanded in 1989 into an award-winning novel with the same title. In a nutshell, it’s about wealthy, psychic vampires who control the world and hunt humans for sport.