And for me, this is where the comparison to Boy’s Life really comes into play. It’s a notion that in the hands of another author probably could have ended up being a complete disaster. The friends, after much debate, decide that they need to figure out how to sneak out that night in order to get in and see this vampire, real or not.įrom this point on, the book mostly goes into a detailed sequence of events, what transpires for these three friends. An intense show is promised, one that won’t be soon forgotten. The poster claims that the town can come out to see one of the last surviving vampires, alive.
A group of three friends come across a flier for a travelling act that is coming to town. The setup for the book is pretty straightforward. I have not had the pleasure of reading anything by Richard Laymon before and I suspect that this will not be the last. It was this feeling that I returned to when I came across The Travelling Vampire Show. I’m normally not a huge fan of books that are so plot-driven but in this case, the plot was so great, it was all I wanted. I couldn’t put the book down and the thing that really threw me was how, for most of the book, it wasn’t really clear what the story was driving towards.
The characters were compelling and I quickly bought into them as a reader. Sure, there are some moments where the narrative seems to brush up against the supernatural but in no way was this horror. I wasn’t wrong in that initial assessment. It wasn’t long after that before I realized how much I had missed out by not sticking with the book the first time through. I bailed out, shortly after beginning my first attempt but before long, I was able to buckle down and force myself through. There was seemingly none of the horrific elements that his books seemed to deliver. I had been a fan of several of McCammon’s books already but Boy’s Life was quite a departure from what I was expecting. And it was a book that I didn’t immediately engage with. One of my favorite books growing up was Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon. Reviews in the Machine: The Traveling Vampire Show, by Richard Laymon
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