The Memoir of Johnny DayWalker
Meghan Davis has done it again, making unsuspecting victims of her readers, fooling us with a campy vampire cover and description, and punching us in the gut with the full spectrum of human emotion. At least that’s what I guess anyone who reads The Memoir of Johnny DayWalker will experience. It’s the same thing that happened to me when reading her previous work, the novella You I Lie With, a love story hidden in the pages of an apocalypse.
John Martin is a vampire who has always been a little uncomfortable with his nature. In this memoir he accounts for his life, hoping that he can be known more for his family than for the actions which made him famous in the media. The assumption is made that the audience knows his fame; what an interesting way to frame the story. Over time, we are given insight into his originally Irish parents living in remote Texas, his vampire and human friends made along the way, and most importantly his wife, Mara.
The story is full of humor. The influences and references to pop-culture, classic literature, and more are clear, and if they weren’t, the author provides a short guide at the end.
The issue of inter-species marriage in this imagined world has undertones of racial tension, but it isn’t in your face about it; because of that, the love between John and Mara is all the more sweet. They aren’t making a statement. They are enjoying quiet nights in and living their lives together. Theirs is a lived-in type of love.
The best part of this book was its exploration of immortality, aging, and death. Mara’s work as a hospice aid and her acknowledgment that even short relationships hold meaning was a stark contrast to John’s family’s outlook that loving a human who is here today and gone tomorrow isn’t worth it. The conversations about John living forever and Mara growing old and dying someday really make the reader think about what it means to be human, what a privilege it is to bear the scars and signs of having lived, and what we do with, as Mary Oliver once wrote, our “one wild and precious life.”
Johnny will outlive his too-short 185 pages in my memory and will, indeed, be known more for his love and family than for anything else, at least for this reader.
Thank you to the author for the ARC of this book. The above represents my genuine reading reaction and honest thoughts.
Some of my favorite quotes:
-
No explicit scenes.
