Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk is the latest work of literary fiction to feature vampires. The author uses the supernatural as a conduit for musings on mothers, daughters, illness, loneliness and desire. This may sound hackneyed and tired, but in reality the book is a triumph. Like all good vampire fiction, Thirst is pretty sexy. Yuszczuk’s treatment of desire is comparable to that of Isabel Allende early in her career. Both authors are charmingly matter-of-fact about sensuality and both have a natural affinity with eeriness; the supernatural suits them. 

Thirst follows two women, one dead and one alive. In present day Buenos Aires, a woman is negotiating single motherhood while struggling with her own mother’s terminal illness. In the very distant past, we encounter an unnamed vampire en route from Europe to the New World. The two narrative strands intersect in a cemetery; the vampire has lain dormant in the present-day protagonist’s family crypt for decades. The two women begin an affair in which the dynamics between predator and prey are no less tangled than those of any relationship. Yuszczuk’s refusal to embellish this narrative or play it for sensation means that instead of a vampy romp the reader is left with a profoundly sad portrait of solitude and queer desire. Anne Rice this is not. 

There are moments when the author’s skilful minimalism, bred in the magical realist tradition, gives way to the pedestrian: the act of viewing Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare is described as making the viewer ‘complicit’ in the cruelty of the painting. This is dull. However, largely this is an excellent