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How Dear the Dawn
Fiction
288 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 23, 2020
Another vampire from South Carolina, only this time it appears in a perfectly readable riff on 'SALEM'S LOT only with cops wielding water pistols loaded with holy water.
April 10, 2016
'How Dear the Dawn' is an unpretentious little novel, not 300 pages, of old-school vampire horror. Marc Eliot is a pseudonym of the late Dave Pedneau, a West Virginian journalist who also wrote police procedurals. There are no long-winded backstories to jam up the narrative flow nor any upending of accepted supernatural mythologies (interestingly the myth of the vampire is presented by one character as a subset of the zombie). Logistics and pacing of are standard B-movie but Pedneau's prose occasionally produces an apt or unexpected image or bit of human interaction, and evokes enough of the Southern American coastline, its landscape and its weather, to lend some welcome atmosphere. Scenes of throat-ripping gore and decay mingle with steamy if straightforward vampire eroticism; characters are perfunctory but individualized; dialogue is not embarrassing for the most part. All in all, not a bad vamp book at all, and the police investigation stuff is done well. I could imagine the titles of some sequels: How Nice the Night, How Mournful the Moon, How Horrible the Hunger...
My full review:
My full review:
September 24, 2012
This book is fantastic. It focuses on the classic vampire story, but digs into the lives of the characters impacted by their presence. You see the struggle of normal people trying to face the reality that vampires exist. It also shows the issues law enforcement officers face when supernatural beings walk the earth. Very interesting and well written. Now available on e readers! It will say written by Dave Pedneau instead of Marc Elliott. Same book. Same author.
June 22, 2009
It's hard to pull off a truly scary vampire novel but Eliot did his best in writing a creepy and suspenseful novel, which is quite amazing for an author who writes mostly nonfiction.
May 18, 2023
In How Dear the Dawn (1987) by Dave Pedneau, a slaveholding vampire from the Antebellum South terrorizes a beach town. While this sounds like a mashup of Interview with the Vampire and The Lost Boys, it isn’t nearly as good as either one of these works. Still, bloodsuckers on the boardwalk are in keeping with the season–it’s time for a fun summer read. And while the setting and gore are certainly fun (that’s an understatement–the gore is amazing), the book also clumsily gestures in more serious directions. Pedneau is preoccupied with comparative mythologies of the vampire, spending ample time on the overlap between African and European stories of the undead. If, like many readers of Anne Rice, you are interested in representations of race in vampire fiction, How Dear The Dawn can be a rewarding read.
An old beachcomber hauls a sunken casket to shore and unleashes a vampire on the tourist town of Twilight Beach. When the vampire’s first victim, Jo Ann McGhee, misses work, her best friend, Alexas Nolan, tries to convince Deputy Mark Travis that something is seriously wrong. Travis� scepticism quickly turns to fear as he struggles to understand and contain a wave of seemingly supernatural crimes. Jo Ann’s disappearance is just the first in a series of strange occurrences in Chicora County: The police discover mutilated bodies drained of blood and hear reports of creatures with glowing red eyes. While morgue attendants claim that the dead can walk, sick residents lack the strength to rise from their beds. Convinced that something evil is afoot, Father Dobree, a local priest who struggles with alcoholism, consults Gabe, a backwoods centenarian and voodoo practitioner who can “read the signs.� From Gabe, Dobree learns that Sterg LeVeau, an Antebellum Era vampire, has returned from his watery grave to drain the living dry. With the bodies piling up and Alexis in danger, Travis begins to believe Dobree, but can he convince Det. Sgt. Jim Cramer and the rest of the force before it is too late?
Like Santa Carla in The Lost Boys, Twilight Beach is the ideal setting for a tale of vampirism. The Lost Boys was filmed in Santa Cruz, a city in California where skate punk, beach boho, and academic culture (it hosts UCSC) mix and mingle, creating a scene that is lightning in a bottle. The Lost Boys exploits this ineffable cool through endless shots of the boardwalk on which tattooed and pierced bodies display themselves for voyeuristic (and ultimately vampiric) consumption. While Twilight Beach, a small vacation spot in South Carolina, can’t compete with this hipness, it still shares the features that make Santa Clara the preferred home of David and his crew. For instance, Twilight Beach’s population is transient, made up primarily of tourists and the workers who come for the summer to support them. When people are on holiday or just passing through, they tend, Pedneau stresses, to indulge in excess–drinking, taking drugs, or engaging in unusual sexual encounters. So if someone disappears, it could be dismissed by a lazy beach cop as a consequence of their own illicit or extreme behavior. In other words, if you’re a vampire, you can feed with impunity. Not only are beach towns perfect hunting grounds, but they have a deliciously creepy feel that your average residential neighborhood, with its familiar streets and faces, can’t match. That’s because when a place is home to no one, it feels empty and heartless even at peak season. A character in its own right, the beach town adds a dark depth to these stories that would be missing in any other setting.
While the setting of Pedneau’s novel reminds me of The Lost Boys, the character of LeVeau is strongly reminiscent of Anne Rice’s creations Lestat and Louis. Returning to the Early Republic in Interview with the Vampire and the Antebellum South in How Dear the Dawn, both novels depict the horrors of chattel slavery and suggest the survival of African cultural practices in the South. Like Louis and Lestat, LeVeau is from Louisiana, owns a plantation, and lives off of enslaved Africans. All three face a slave rebellion but, while Louis and Lestat escape, LeVeau is sealed in his casket and submerged in Chicora Inlet’s salt water, which strips him of his power. This salt water trick comes from African tradition, according to Gabe, who, functioning as a point of cultural transmission, tries to teach Father Dobree what his mother taught him. In a heated debate with Dobree, Gabe insists that LeVeau is a zombie, while the priest argues that “zombie� and “vampire� are two words for the same thing. Clearly intrigued by comparative mythology, Pedneau considers how the persistence of African folkways might shape and change European conceptions of the vampire. His approach to race is often cringeworthy: The idea that African Americans are closer to nature and more spiritual is a tired, racist trope; and the rendering of Gabe’s speech is awful. Nonetheless, Pedneau’s explorations of linguistic and cultural differences add interest to a novel that, in other ways, feels like a basic police procedural.
From what I’ve written so far, you might get the impression that LeVeau is cool like the vampires in The Lost Boys or sophisticated like Lestat. He’s actually a total buffoon and his ineptitude is the best part of the book. LeVeau’s first convert, Jo Ann McGee, openly defies him and he’s flummoxed by her intractability. Like an overwhelmed parent, he rings his hands and delivers empty threats of a future punishment. Kids today. In addition to being weak, his clothes look like they’re from a stage play and his breath is foul. Bad breath in a vampire isn’t unusual–they drink blood, after all. But Pedneau mentions the odor so often, that the phrase “stench of putrefaction� could be the trigger phrase in a drinking game. It’s compared to rotting fish, an open grave, and the list goes on. With so many strong and sexy vampires out there, it’s refreshing to find one who’s a fool in need of a breath mint.
If you’re not grossed out by LeVeau’s mouth, there are undoubtedly other descriptions in the novel that will repulse you. I consider this a solid point in the book’s favor. Depictions of nausea beget nausea, and there are countless instances of police officers gagging, coughing up bile, and full-on vomiting. They get sick for good reason: The gore in this book is glorious! Heads slowly blacken and swell with putrescent gas or suddenly explode like “overripe tomatoes.� At the height of the blood orgy, LeVeau detaches his rotting arm and, after swinging the appendage overhead to maximize velocity, pitches it at an officer, who is then choked by its still animated hand. The carnage is endless and amazing.
Whether you’re seeking beachtime relaxation, inventive descriptions of decapitation, or cross-cultural approaches to vampire mythology, How Dear the Dawn has it all.
An old beachcomber hauls a sunken casket to shore and unleashes a vampire on the tourist town of Twilight Beach. When the vampire’s first victim, Jo Ann McGhee, misses work, her best friend, Alexas Nolan, tries to convince Deputy Mark Travis that something is seriously wrong. Travis� scepticism quickly turns to fear as he struggles to understand and contain a wave of seemingly supernatural crimes. Jo Ann’s disappearance is just the first in a series of strange occurrences in Chicora County: The police discover mutilated bodies drained of blood and hear reports of creatures with glowing red eyes. While morgue attendants claim that the dead can walk, sick residents lack the strength to rise from their beds. Convinced that something evil is afoot, Father Dobree, a local priest who struggles with alcoholism, consults Gabe, a backwoods centenarian and voodoo practitioner who can “read the signs.� From Gabe, Dobree learns that Sterg LeVeau, an Antebellum Era vampire, has returned from his watery grave to drain the living dry. With the bodies piling up and Alexis in danger, Travis begins to believe Dobree, but can he convince Det. Sgt. Jim Cramer and the rest of the force before it is too late?
Like Santa Carla in The Lost Boys, Twilight Beach is the ideal setting for a tale of vampirism. The Lost Boys was filmed in Santa Cruz, a city in California where skate punk, beach boho, and academic culture (it hosts UCSC) mix and mingle, creating a scene that is lightning in a bottle. The Lost Boys exploits this ineffable cool through endless shots of the boardwalk on which tattooed and pierced bodies display themselves for voyeuristic (and ultimately vampiric) consumption. While Twilight Beach, a small vacation spot in South Carolina, can’t compete with this hipness, it still shares the features that make Santa Clara the preferred home of David and his crew. For instance, Twilight Beach’s population is transient, made up primarily of tourists and the workers who come for the summer to support them. When people are on holiday or just passing through, they tend, Pedneau stresses, to indulge in excess–drinking, taking drugs, or engaging in unusual sexual encounters. So if someone disappears, it could be dismissed by a lazy beach cop as a consequence of their own illicit or extreme behavior. In other words, if you’re a vampire, you can feed with impunity. Not only are beach towns perfect hunting grounds, but they have a deliciously creepy feel that your average residential neighborhood, with its familiar streets and faces, can’t match. That’s because when a place is home to no one, it feels empty and heartless even at peak season. A character in its own right, the beach town adds a dark depth to these stories that would be missing in any other setting.
While the setting of Pedneau’s novel reminds me of The Lost Boys, the character of LeVeau is strongly reminiscent of Anne Rice’s creations Lestat and Louis. Returning to the Early Republic in Interview with the Vampire and the Antebellum South in How Dear the Dawn, both novels depict the horrors of chattel slavery and suggest the survival of African cultural practices in the South. Like Louis and Lestat, LeVeau is from Louisiana, owns a plantation, and lives off of enslaved Africans. All three face a slave rebellion but, while Louis and Lestat escape, LeVeau is sealed in his casket and submerged in Chicora Inlet’s salt water, which strips him of his power. This salt water trick comes from African tradition, according to Gabe, who, functioning as a point of cultural transmission, tries to teach Father Dobree what his mother taught him. In a heated debate with Dobree, Gabe insists that LeVeau is a zombie, while the priest argues that “zombie� and “vampire� are two words for the same thing. Clearly intrigued by comparative mythology, Pedneau considers how the persistence of African folkways might shape and change European conceptions of the vampire. His approach to race is often cringeworthy: The idea that African Americans are closer to nature and more spiritual is a tired, racist trope; and the rendering of Gabe’s speech is awful. Nonetheless, Pedneau’s explorations of linguistic and cultural differences add interest to a novel that, in other ways, feels like a basic police procedural.
From what I’ve written so far, you might get the impression that LeVeau is cool like the vampires in The Lost Boys or sophisticated like Lestat. He’s actually a total buffoon and his ineptitude is the best part of the book. LeVeau’s first convert, Jo Ann McGee, openly defies him and he’s flummoxed by her intractability. Like an overwhelmed parent, he rings his hands and delivers empty threats of a future punishment. Kids today. In addition to being weak, his clothes look like they’re from a stage play and his breath is foul. Bad breath in a vampire isn’t unusual–they drink blood, after all. But Pedneau mentions the odor so often, that the phrase “stench of putrefaction� could be the trigger phrase in a drinking game. It’s compared to rotting fish, an open grave, and the list goes on. With so many strong and sexy vampires out there, it’s refreshing to find one who’s a fool in need of a breath mint.
If you’re not grossed out by LeVeau’s mouth, there are undoubtedly other descriptions in the novel that will repulse you. I consider this a solid point in the book’s favor. Depictions of nausea beget nausea, and there are countless instances of police officers gagging, coughing up bile, and full-on vomiting. They get sick for good reason: The gore in this book is glorious! Heads slowly blacken and swell with putrescent gas or suddenly explode like “overripe tomatoes.� At the height of the blood orgy, LeVeau detaches his rotting arm and, after swinging the appendage overhead to maximize velocity, pitches it at an officer, who is then choked by its still animated hand. The carnage is endless and amazing.
Whether you’re seeking beachtime relaxation, inventive descriptions of decapitation, or cross-cultural approaches to vampire mythology, How Dear the Dawn has it all.
September 29, 2012
I definitely would recommend this book to any fan of the vampire genre. It's a unique story that focuses on the struggle of believing in the supernatural. The characteristics of the original vampire is different and interesting. The plot focuses quite a bit attention on the conflict between police (who enforce the law) and religious leaders (which fight the supernatural). Of course the story involves two lovers, but it isn't a "twilight" type of love. It's more of a back story, which I enjoy. The author is very descriptive and certain scenes made my stomach turn. Great story. Would definitely recommend on a stormy night.
February 26, 2020
4.7 stars.
Lost vampire classic. Hobo beachcomber discovers an underwater coffin, unleashing ancient evil.
If you like Salem's Lot and Dracula then "How Dear the Dawn" is compulsory and essential.
Lost vampire classic. Hobo beachcomber discovers an underwater coffin, unleashing ancient evil.
If you like Salem's Lot and Dracula then "How Dear the Dawn" is compulsory and essential.
March 22, 2019
Audible:This was a really good old timey Vampire story!Written in a time where Kojack is the tv model of a tv detective and there are no cell phones,it sets a perfect scene.I am not sure of the choice of a 'non American' voice for the narrator since the book was set on the Carolina coast.I loved Chiquito Crastos accent,but could not place it.There were quite a few repeats of lines in this book.All in all he did a fine job. I enjoyed the book. I was given this book by the narrator,author or publisher free for an honest review.
December 14, 2018
Usually not a fan of horror books, pick this up as an attempt to expand my reading pool. I must say really enjoyed this book, very well written. The story didn’t dwell to long on character building. You learn all you need to know about them as the story folds out and as the plot thickens.
April 28, 2020
Kind of an abrupt ending, but nonetheless it was a pretty good book. I enjoyed the old school vampire horror.
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