Jerne is supposed to be a vampire – her grandmother is one, after all – but unfortunately she is still living and has no desire to suck someone’s blood. These are both seen as failures by her grandmother, a beautiful, charismatic woman who is always going on about the attractive men that she feeds on or her past encounters with celebrities like Oscar Wilde or Franz Liszt. Jerne would rather be an artist – she has dreams of writing a children’s book. To avoid suspicion, she works for a small publisher – her exacting boss is the oddly named Norma-Elektra – and hopes to have her own work published there. She is baffled by Norma-Elektra’s husband and partner, Jermak – is he a garden-variety sexually-harassing creeper or a vampire? Jerne also reconnects with a childhood friend, Somi, who is now fronting a rising band.

Jerne notes in the beginning that she is dead but is remembering life before death in the first part. The second half looks at her afterlife. The first half of the books is a fun, quirky read. It’s an engaging and funny story – the mix of the supernatural and mundane is handled well and though some random stuff happens, the characters’ calm reaction makes the reader accept it as well. The setting is Budapest and occasionally Jerne muses on Hungarian history and culture. I picked up a couple references but some of it probably passed me by. It was enjoyable reading about the odd characters and funny bits like Jerne’s children’s book featuring a rabbit named Initiative and her habit of swearing using the names of French authors and philosophers. The second half of the book was less compelling though. Jerne’s new romantic interest - her Hungarian teacher O - and her Uncle Oscar were not as interesting as her vivacious and entertaining grandmother and the malevolent, ambiguous Jermak. In this part, Jerne works for a vegetarian restaurant – a humorous concept but I missed the bits about publishing. Occasional promising plots – Jerne feels uncomfortable with love and is stalked by a creature called Childeater – go by too quickly. A fun enough read and certainly an odd entry in the vampire genre. ( )

Definitely one of the odder books I've read this year. The first of the author's works (which have won many prizes in Hungary) to be translated into English. I suspect that there are various satirical bits about Hungarian literature and culture that I missed, but there are also very amusing elements here that come through. The narrator is a hereditary vampire, trying to figure out her role in the world. She'd rather be writing children's stories than consuming blood, but that doesn't really seem to be in the cards. ( )