Drawing Blood is a 1993 novel, the second novel from author Poppy Z. Brite

Poppy Z. Brite

Poppy Z. Brite is an American author. Brite initially achieved notoriety in the gothic horror genre of literature in the early 1990s after publishing a string of successful novels and short story collections...

.

Synopsis

The novel concerns Trevor McGee, a comic book artist

Comic Book Artist

Comic Book Artist was an American magazine founded by Jon B. Cooke devoted to anecdotal histories of American comic books, with emphasis on comics published since the 1960s...

 and sole survivor of a family murder-suicide, and Zachary Bosch, a bisexual hacker

Hacker (computer security)

In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...

, and their arrival at McGee's old family home in Missing Mile, North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

, a fictional town featured in Brite's previous novel, Lost Souls.

Something of a haunted house

Haunted house

A haunted house is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property...

 tale, Drawing Blood was originally entitled Birdland but the publisher retitled it to make a thin connection to Brite's first novel Lost Souls, a vampire

Vampire

Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...

 tale.

Collectibles

When a man set himself on fire in the Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 location of a commercial mailbox company, copies of this novel were saturated with the smell of burnt flesh. They were sold by book dealer Barry R. Levin as collectibles.