sonny barker

First published in 1970, the gay pulp classic Vampire's Kiss, follows the transformation of Damon Sanger from an ambitious, married attorney to a gay vampire whose bodily libation of choice isn't blood.

During a restless night of solo barhopping, Damon accidentally wanders into The Cave, a gay nigthclub, and drunkenly goes home with hypnotic, handsome and red-lipped seducer Alan Drake. Alan makes short work of Damon's conviction that he's straight as an arrow, and Alan isn't just gay; he's also a vampire. Or is he? Damon can't decide whether his trysts with Alan have simply opened his eyes to his true desires, or whether he's under the influence of a supernatural fiend whose wildly exciting influence has inducted him into the ranks of the homosexual undead, doomed to roam the earth and convert other men.

Written with a light hand and a sly sense of humor, Vampire's Kiss follows Damon as he negotiates his secret life while pretending to be the ordinary suburban husband who enjoyed boozy barbecues with the neighbors and admiring curvaceous women. As Damon learns how to satisfy his new appetites and maintain his sanity, he conducts an ongoing, tongue-in-cheek examination of himself—he is a lawyer, after all—about everything from the morality of recruiting new vampires to whether he really has to give up the garlic he's always loved.