The Vampire

A New History

by Nick Groom

Yale, 287 pp., $25

“Now you know what we are. Now you know what you are. You’ll never grow old, Michael. And you’ll never die. But you must feed.” So Kiefer Sutherland tells Jason Patric in The Lost Boys, the 1987 movie about a roving gang of teenage vampires. I remember watching the scene in a college literature class, as a classmate tearfully explained how this movie—and vampires generally—helped her cope with her grandmother’s death.

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