Love Bites

Sookie and Oskar are in the throes of vampire lust,a pop-culture contagion being spread via television,films and fiction. What began with the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer,followed by Twilight,the movie,has become a pandemic of unholy proportions.

No small part of this latest vampire mania seems to stem from the ethereal cool and youthful sexiness with which the demons are portrayed. The vampire is the new James Dean, said Julie Plec,the writer and executive producer of The Vampire Diaries,a forthcoming TV series. There is something so still and sexy about these young erotic predators, she said.

The June premiere of the second season of True Blood,in which Sookie,played by Anna Paquin,is reunited with her imperious fanged suitor,drew 3.4 million viewers,making it HBOs most-watched programme since the Sopranos finale (2007).

Charlaine Harris has just published Dead and Gone,the ninth novel in her Sookie Stackhouse series,on which True Blood is based. The publishing world has been intrigued by The Strain,a first installment in a planned trilogy written by the film director Guillermo del Toro.

The style world,too,has come under the vampires spell,with gorgeous leather- and lace-clad night crawlers in the pages of fashion glossies.

Vampire-like glamour figures strike come-hither poses in a flurry of recent publications. In the current issue of W,Bruce Willis appears about to be raked by the talons of his new wife,Emma Heming.

In Junes Italian Vogue,models pose as spooky night crawlers like those who once haunted Manhattan clubs. The vampires attraction is all about the titillation of imagining the monsters we could be if we just let ourselves go, suggested Rick Owens,a fashion bellwether.

Periods of war,economic downturns and cultural turmoil all give rise to the production of vampire and fantasy fiction, said Thomas Garza,chair of the department of Slavic and Eurasian studies at the University of Texas at Austin,and a specialist in vampire lore.

There are monsters so much bigger and more realistic in our day-to-day lives, said Emily Rose,a performance poet in Chicago. Having somebody clamp onto your neck and drain you that doesnt seem so scary anymore.