Blood, desire, and the fight against patriarchy

As we approach Halloween this October, I thought a story about the supernatural would be the most appropriate book review choice. Hungerstone by queer British fantasy novelist Kat Dunn is a sapphic vampire novel set in 19th century Britain. Inspired by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 vampire novella "Carmilla", Dunn's novel is a story about blood and hunger. While these are typical themes in a vampire novel, Dunn goes beyond their genre association to explore their roles in women's health and the socioeconomic oppression and exploitation of women and working class people. In a genre where women are far too often objectified, Dunn transforms the fall to vampirism into a form of self actualisation and emancipation.

The novel's narrator, Lady Lenore Crowther, is the 30-year-old wife of cutlery industrialist Henry Crowther and the ultimate self-made woman. At 12 years old, she survived a tragic carriage accident that killed her parents and left her under the cloistered tutelage of her sole relative, Aunt Daphne. She uses her ancient family name to arrange a marriage into the wealthy up-and-coming industrialist Crowther family. Henry and Lenore move from London to the Nethershaw estate in Derbyshire where Lenore now finds herself to be the mistress of a great house. It is the culmination of a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice, a position for which many women in her class would kill for. Despite Lenore's undeniable social success, her marriage to Henry is neither fruitful nor happy. They had failed to produce any children, and Henry had long ago abandoned their marriage bed. He only offers her a chaste kiss or polite compliment as an occasional scant offering of affection. Lenore suffers from loneliness and an unknown physical ailment which she self-medicates with laudanum and pastilles.

The relationship between Lenore and Carmilla culminates in a passionate love scene between the two women. While some readers might dismiss it as a gratuitous attempt by the author to titillate her readers, I would argue the scene feels like the natural peak to the characters' relationship arc.

The vampire, a woman named Carmilla Kernstein, first appears to Lenore in what may or may not have been an erotic dream in her London home. Lenore encounters Carmilla for the first time in the real world when Lenore and Henry stumble upon her during a carriage ride to their Nethershaw estate. Lenore immediately recognises Carmilla as the woman from her dreams. But despite her reservations, Victorian social etiquette demands she and Henry provide Carmilla hospitality until she recovers.

Carmilla is an Aphrodite-like figure whose presence reignites a long-repressed desire in Lenore. Lenore frequently catches herself staring longingly at Carmilla's body. Beyond sparking her libido, Carmilla provides Lenore with a companionship that she had been sorely lacking. Carmilla's presence allows Lenore to confide those secrets that she dares not share with Henry or even her best friend Cora, and Lenore finally gets to question the way Henry treats her. "What do you want?" is the question that Carmilla repeatedly asks Lenore.

The relationship between Lenore and Carmilla culminates in a passionate love scene between the two women. While some readers might dismiss it as a gratuitous attempt by the author to titillate her readers, I would argue the scene feels like the natural peak to the characters' relationship arc. While the scene is passionate, it is tastefully portrayed in a way that speaks to an organic love between the two women.

Typically, in vampire novels, women are enslaved by vampires into objects of food and desire. Yet Dunn turns Carmilla's vampiric seduction of Lenore from an act of enslavement into an act of emancipation. She wants. She sees when other people attempt to exploit her, and she is willing to fight back. The Lenore at the end of the novel is self-actualised in a way her previous self couldn't even dream of being.

However, Dunn's scope extends beyond the romance between Lenore and Carmilla; Henry's cutlery making factory has been failing to compensate their workers and their families who were injured or killed on the job. Lenore is horrified to learn that the privileged lifestyle she has come to enjoy as Henry's wife has been financed on the blood of working class people in her husband's factory. She appears to see the workers stuck in the same patriarchal capitalist system that has trapped her in a loveless marriage.

If I had to critique any element of the novel, I would have liked to have learned more about Carmilla. Where did she come from? How did she become a vampire? What initially drew her to Lenore? I understand that much of Carmilla's appeal stems from her mysterious nature, but it would have been fascinating to learn more about the human woman behind the vampire.

In the end, I strongly recommend Dunn's Hungerstone. The story represents a fascinating queer reappropriation of the vampire genre into one of sapphic emancipation and self actualisation in the face of patriarchal exploitation.

Jonah Kent Richards is a Shakespeare screen adaptation scholar, an English teacher, and contributor for Star Books and Literature.