Millions who followed the love saga between rebellious Bella and a sexy vampire await the third instalment, out today
Vancouver Sun: 2008 August 2
I'm discussing vampires with a woman I've just met over the Internet. Well, one vampire in particular, and the mortal girl he loves. We're debating whether or not he should "turn" his beloved so they can share a happily forever after. I think Bella is too young for him (17 to 100-plus when they meet), but Megan Jones, 25, is less sure. "I do hope to see Bella become a vampire and everything that comes along with that," she says from her Richmond workplace. "Because that seems like the ultimate goal of the story. But . . . I can understand his point of view where he would like her to wait and have the normal human experience of a young adult."
We continue in this (yup) vein for a bit and while we're talking, dozens -- hundreds -- of others are speculating just like this in chat rooms, online forums and summer camps everywhere about the future of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, two of the main characters in Stephenie Meyer's breakaway teen vampire series, Twilight Saga.
Since the publication last summer of Eclipse, the story's third instalment, millions of readers have been left to conjectures about whether Edward (a beautiful, eternally young vampire who slakes his bloodlust by feeding on animals, not people) will finally bite the headstrong, rebellious Bella or whether Bella will choose the books' other hottie, a young native werewolf named Jacob.
BOOKSELLERS' BONANZA
If you aren't a 15-year-old girl (or know how to channel one), you may wonder why five million Americans and more than a half-million Canadians care. For fans, the answer seems to be the welcome confection of a story of true romance, what Time magazine has called "Gossip Girls for good girls." For the publishing industry, it's something besides: a welcome cash transfusion.
Tom Best, vice-president of marketing for HB Fenn, the Canadian distributor for the Twilight Saga, says the appetite for Meyer's work isn't just strong, it's seemingly unending.
"When I first joined Fenn," he says by phone from Toronto, "the books were all selling 500 copies a week, which is fantastic numbers -- and that's never ceased. Those numbers just continue to rise and rise and rise, which has led us to think there really is a way bigger market for this writer than would have been imagined."
Asked what kids' book compares in sales performance and fan fervour, Best is unequivocal.
"There's no question the Harry Potter model is something we are somewhat following. And with great deference to my former employer" -- Best's previous job was at Raincoast Books, Canadian publisher of the boy wizard -- "we have tried to pick up some of the great things that were part of that campaign."
For Breaking Dawn, those "great things" include all the Rowling hallmarks: winnable signed bookplates and intimate author/fan meets rather than multi-city readings; midnight launches across the country; and a do-not-open-before-12:01-or-else embargo. (Raincoast Books declined to comment on the similarities.)
"A year ago this summer we launched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows and the wisdom was we would never see anything like it," says Trevor Dayton, vice-president, kids and entertainment, for Chapters Indigo. "And here we are a year later seeing something very much like it. It's not of the scale of Harry Potter, but it's ... got all of the similarities to Potter in terms of the kids being incredibly enthusiastic."
The midnight launch format -- this is the first for the chain for any book outside the Potter series -- satisfies "a generation of readers who have experienced reading through Harry Potter as a very social and engaged experience," Dayton says from Toronto. "Engaged as they are, they wanted to come at midnight and celebrate. They're training us -- we really are responding to what this audience and this generation of readers want."
"Responding" is perhaps an understatement: Dayton says Breaking Dawn represents the biggest order of a book the chain has made outside Harry Potter.
Kelly McKinnon, co-owner of Vancouver Kidsbooks, calls the Twilight Saga "probably the most universally adored book by teenage girls at this moment."
She says it follows in Potter's footsteps in another regard as well. "The thickness [758 pages] doesn't put anyone off. So people who are not even huge readers are taking it on. I think Harry Potter definitely broke that wall."
The very luxury of falling into a deliciously long, involving romantic story may also help explain the series' appeal.
"Meyer floods the page like a severed artery," Time wrote. "She never uses a sentence when she can use a whole paragraph. ... They have a pillowy quality distinctly reminiscent of Internet fan fiction."
(Think of this description of Edward: "He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare ... smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.") There's something to that Internet comparison: Fanfiction.net has an amazing 1,000 amateur spinoff stories based on the series.
"It's a great summer read," says Mc-Kinnon. "Even people who don't like vampires love these books. It's the love interest and it's the relationships and it's the longing."
Online fan sites such as Twilighters.org and Twilightlexiconblog.com reflect that: Posts are full of speculation about matters of the heart -- not how to stake one, but how to open it to love.
That's not traditionally attractive territory for teen boys, but Alastair Champion, 14, is one of the male minority among fans. He's not a follower of vampire stories, and he calls the series "an interesting twist on Romeo and Juliet."
Does he have a favourite moment? "I truthfully can't say. It's all too good." He can't wait for the next instalment. "I won't sleep for a week."
"When I first heard the book was about vampires," agrees confirmed fan Gillian Scott, 14, "I was sort of skeptical because it sounded a bit weird. But it's not just about vampires. It's fundamentally a love story. And that's always fun to read."
By the way, Scott, who was planning to attend the Kidsbooks midnight party in costume, hopes Bella gets her undead way. "She knows what she's getting into," she says. "If she loves Edward enough to do that for him, he shouldn't stand in her way."
Meyer herself might agree. The mother of three has frequently insisted that the books are meant to champion not bloodsucking so much as the validity of resisting temptation and choosing your own path. Meyer, unschooled in vampire lore and a practising Mormon, only picked up a pen after Edward appeared to her in a dream.
One reader who did come to the series for the bloodsuckers is Megan Jones, who started a community group on Chaptersindigo.ca to hook up with other fans looking to attend the Chapters Granville launch.
From the beginning, she says, she was hooked. "I read all three books in one weekend ... I really enjoy the fact that Stephenie Meyer's character of Edward is a bit more relatable, much more human than typical vampires. They're often aloof and sometimes grotesque. I like that even though he's about 109 years old, he still experiences a lot of the things that young adults and teenagers do."
Jones, also planning to come in costume, was certain about one thing: what she would be doing as of 12:02 a.m. today.
"If everything goes according to plan, I'll get my book, I'll go right home, and read it the entire night. I was hoping I could savour it and let it go for a couple of days, but I don't think I'm going to find the strength for that."
TWILIGHT TO BITE INTO LARGER MARKET
Vampire romances for girls are all very well in the world of publishing, but when Hollywood comes calling, niche markets just aren't profitable enough. The film version of Twilight, the first book in Stephenie Meyer's vampire series, cost a rumoured $37 million US. To capture a wider market, the film, directed by gritty-coming-of-age helmer Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown), seems to be promising not just murmurings of love, but kick-ass fight scenes too.
The adaptation, due out in mid-December, stars Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan and Harry Potter actor Robert Pattinson (he played nice guy Cedric Diggory) as Edward Cullen. Internet rumours claim 5,000 actors tried out for that role.
Advance trailers show the film to be true to the book's rainy Pacific Northwest setting, but the recent cover of Entertainment Weekly, with an extremely knowing Stewart holding a juicy red apple (nudge, nudge), suggests steamy bedrooms might get as much screen time as dripping forests.
Book publisher Tom Best wishes the film every success, particularly outside the core teen girl market. "Maybe," he says, "there will be a whole re-interest when the movie comes out from boys that may help spark that drive to go back and read these, if only to better understand what the opposite sex is attracted to."
