Vampire Legends in Contemporary American Culture

"William Patrick Day looks at how writers and filmmakers as diverse as Anne Rice and Andy Warhol present the vampire as an archetype of human identity and how many postmodern vampire stories reflect our fear of and attraction to addiction and violence. He argues that the prevailing tendency of authors in the first half of the twentieth century to use vampire characters to caution against succumbing to sexual impulse has since changed; today, in the vampire's struggle between embracing and denying its nature, we see reflected our own uncertain balance between moral restraint and liberation."--BOOK JACKET.