Reclaiming the Dead

Reclaiming the Dead traces the origin] "of vampires in an interpretation of events that is by far the most reasoned--and thus, disturbing--version around. Brotherton's writing far exceeds that of standard vampire fare..."
-Kirkus Reviews

In the small town of Keating, Iowa, the surname Daniels is synonymous with insanity. Recently dumped by his girlfriend and fired from his job, Merton Daniels has been reduced to crashing on a friend's couch and visiting a blood center to exchange his plasma for cash. Awakened from an unintentional drunken stupor by a voice in his head calling his name, Merton finds a mysterious card tucked under his arm. A subsequent meeting with a beleaguered bureaucrat sets Merton, along with his chattering roommate, Coaler, on an unsupervised apprenticeship in the finer points of reclaiming the dead: slaying vampires.

While Merton combats delusions and an inner voice that hounds him with a relentlessness that exceeds even that of his undead adversaries, the novel tracks a thought-provoking mythology of the undead in Judas Iscariot, a shape-shifting and blood-thirsty creature who was reborn when the boundary between life and death was still convulsing.

Resonant with existential echoes of Sartre and Salinger, and a singular sense of humor that recalls Vonnegut and Palahniuk, Reclaiming the Dead is an infectious and inventive tale that stands the vampire fantasy genre on its ear with a literate and sophisticated story of modern life and redemption.

"Anyone who fights with monsters should take care that he does not in the process become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

James Patrick Brotherton lives in Washington State with his wife and son. His fiction has appeared in The Gettysburg Review. He attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference as a contributor. This is his first novel.