Fans of Pearl Cleage’s fiction generally know what to expect from her best-selling books. The action will take place in Atlanta’s West End. The neighborhood will morph into an oasis of peace and prosperity where everyone leaves their doors unlocked. And at least a couple of her long-standing characters will appear as the author wrestles with themes of personal responsibility, community uplift and, always, love.
So why is Cleage now writing about vampires?
They are the stars in her new book “Just Wanna Testify.” The West End is there. Several faithful characters are there, including the West End’s godfather of sorts, Blue Hamilton. But blood suckers?
Cleage has just begun a two-year residency at the Alliance Theatre on the heels of a successful run there of her comedy, “The Nacirema Society.” She took a break in between teaching classes at the theater recently and sat down with us to talk about her literary turn toward the dark(ish) side.
Q: Vampires? Are you serious?
A: [Laughs]. Serious, sort of. About two years ago my daughter and I went to see the movie "The September Issue" about Anna Wintour and Vogue. When the September issue of the actual magazine came out I'm looking through the thing and every single model was about 6 feet tall, they weighed about 20 pounds, they had that black eye shadow on, hair skinned back and bright red lipstick. I thought to myself, 'Every one of these girls looks like a vampire.' And I had been exposed to the "Twilight" movies because I have a niece who really loves them and I tried to watch "True Blood" on TV, but it was too much fangs in the neck for me. So I thought, 'Vampires are so much a part of the popular culture, and I wonder what that means?' At first I said 'Well, this is the meaning of a death-obsessed culture.' But then I said to myself, 'Just think about it with a little lighter tone. Is it funny to you or the end of civilization?' I decided it was just kind of funny.
Q: With all of that, how did they wind up in the West End?
A: I said, 'Let's just pick five of these beautiful vampires from the pages of Vogue and see if we drop them in the West End what would happen?'
Q: But you took some real liberties with vampire orthodoxy. No blood. No fangs. And they are day walkers.
A: That's what my editor said. And I said, 'There are no vampires for real, so these can do whatever they want.' And this is not a serious, now-I'm-going-to-write-a-vampire book. I'm still talking about the same things I'm always talking about; responsibility to the community; relationships between men and women.
Q: So you felt freed from the rules.
A: Yes and to have fun with something that wasn't a 'serious' black writer issue. Because I'm from that generation where everything you write is supposed to be seriously taking us a step forward to the revolution. These vampires are not about that.
Q: Are you going to stay with this theme for a while in other books?
A: This is my only foray into the vampire world.
Q: But it also seems like you were trying to say something about female body image in your depiction of the five models weighing a total of about 107 pounds.
A: The whole idea of female beauty that comes through in the pages of Vogue is so bizarre and strange to me because it requires no breasts, no behinds, just shoulders and a face with big eyes. I don't think that's a good thing. I have three granddaughters now, so I think about that stuff a lot more.
Q: Is this kind of a bandwagon thing for you since everyone is employing vampires now, even in reinterpretations of the classics?
A: No. I'm very intrigued by popular culture, what people listen to, what they read, why they like it. So it was me finding all this vampire stuff amusing and challenging myself to see if I could make the people who read my books find it amusing, too.
Q: What about zombies? Will they be next?
A: Oh no. I don't like zombies. They've got no style. And they are too scary.
Meet the author:
Pearl Cleage
7 p.m. Wednesday, July 27. Decatur Public Library, 215 Sycamore St., Decatur. 404-370-8450, Ext. 2225; www.georgiacenterforthebook.org.
