From blood bonds to brand loyalties: Poppy Z. Brite’s Lost Souls and Alan Ball’s True Blood

Abstract

This article reads two contemporary vampire narratives, Poppy Z. Brite’s Lost Souls and Alan Ball’s TV series True Blood (2009–2011), in terms of René Girard’s theory of mimetic violence and sacrificial crisis. Through complex representations of violence, bloodletting and, in the case of True Blood, the commoditization of blood and blood consumption, these works depict communities on the verge of sacrificial crisis, while also gesturing towards alternative economies of blood through nuanced ‘queerings’ of the vampire community.