Books

Knuckle Supper

By Chris Zimmerman
November 8, 2010 - 23:58

With the influx of romanticism pervading the horror genre, specifically vampires, it’s become difficult to take the blood sucking fiends seriously. True, the earliest vampire stories contained overtones of seduction and erotica but later works such as Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot and John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let Me In added a gorier element meant to incite fear and capitalize on the horror aspects of the vampire. Recently, ever since the mega boom in teen literature that was Twilight, it seems the vampire has once again been reduced to sympathetic sweetheart for whom adolescent girls can crush on. Knuckle Supper seeks to change all that, steering vampire literature in a gritty direction brimming with junkies and gangsters.

The narrative is told through the perspective of RJ, a vampire based out of LA. RJ is quick to inform the reader of the key differences separating him from the preconceived image of the vampire Stephanie Meyer and Anne Rice have supplied. Vampires aren’t mystical in any way; they don’t fly, nor do they have hypnotic abilities. What they do have though is predatory instincts and a tendency for ripping their victims apart. Interestingly enough, while they do require blood to maintain their life span, its drug-saturated human blood that gives them a real kick.

RJ is the leader of a gang called the Knucklers. He’s not particularly high on life nor is he comfortable in his own flesh. When a twelve-year-old prostitute, aptly named Bait, stumbles into his life, RJ is caught at a cross roads. Whereas RJ was once considered a malicious killer, he finds himself neutered so to speak as not only is he unable to bring himself to kill the girl; he’s made to look the fool when she drags him into a “vampire club”.

Unfortunately for RJ, Bait is merely the inauguration to his problems, as his life steadily crumbles around him into a bloody heap of revenge and gore. The violence employed is excessive and unrelenting, with each torn limb meticulously detailed in sublime elegance. Make no mistake; RJ is an irredeemable beast whose acidic temper walks a fine line between dark comedy and the unflinchingly sadistic.

Knuckle Supper refrains from teasing subtlety. Author Drew Stepek’s style is best suited for a balls-to-the-wall adrenaline rush of imagery that calls upon his entire narrative prowess in depicting the most outrageous scenarios imaginable while still retaining a hint of reality from which he can call upon to unsettle readers.

Is the story a condemnation of what the vampire genre has become? Perhaps; then again, Knuckle Supper’s true purpose appears to accentuate a person’s ability to choose what to do with their lives. For all their carnal desires, the vampires are really only metaphors for the monsters lurking inside all of us while those like Bait, struggle with what little they have. Dark, dirty, and excessively violent, Knuckle Supper is a repugnant tale of the consequences of life style choices blanketed in the macabre.

10% of the books revenue will be donated to  http://www.childrenofthenight.org/ which helps and rescues children from prostitution.

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Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12