Motherless Child--Motherless Children #1

Starred review from August 13, 2012
Hirshberg (The Book of Bunk) weaves love, desire, revenge, loyalty, and sacrifice into a blockbuster narrative. Natalie and Sophie, sassy North Carolina moms with young children, encounter the Whistler, who turns them into vampires. Clinging to humanity, Natalie tells her widowed mother, Jess, to flee with both women’s kids. The Whistler’s infatuation with Natalie, his “Destiny,” leads him to track down her child as bait to ensure that she will complete her transformation to immortality as his vampiric companion. Angered by the loss of the Whistler’s affection, his companion, Mother, forges her own plots. Hirshberg’s adept characterization engages the reader’s sympathies for Natalie and Sophie as they fight the pangs of vampiric hunger and yearn for their absent children. His depiction of Jess in her dogged, self-sacrificial adherence to Natalie’s request evokes Faulknerian depth. The clash of human and vampire worlds in the tumultuous final showdown presents a satisfying, startling, conclusion and infuses this work with both literary and genre merit.

Starred review from May 15, 2014
Award-winning author Hirshberg takes readers on a grisly yet darkly comedic road trip in this outstanding southern horror tale about two single moms and their unfortunate encounter with a shadowy and irresistible singer known as the Whistler. Natalie and Sophie have been turned into vampires, and, as realization sets in, they leave their children with Natalie's mother and take off on a road trip to figure things out. The story begins on a surreal note with the women casually discussing music and life as they agonize over whether to satisfy their need to eat or to resist their urges and go home. All the while, the Whistler and his longtime companion, Mother, are looking for Sophie and Natalie, with Hirshberg deftly switching from comic banter into tension-laced, decidedly creepy horror mode. No fangs, no pretty shirtless vampires, and no romance herethis one is a spine-tingler with smart dialogue, a thickly atmospheric setting, and plenty of visceral violence. Fine old-school horror, which will delight fans disgusted by the overabundance of vampire lite now dominating the genre.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)