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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'For Jamie Mackie, summer holidays in the coastal town of Rocky Head mean surfing, making money, and good times at the local music festival. But this year, vampires are on the festival's line-up ... fulfilling a pact made on the wreck of the Batavia, four hundred years ago. If their plans succeed, nobody in Rocky Head will survive to see out the new year.' (From the publisher's website.)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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'In Need of Vitamin Sea': The Emergence of Australian Identity through the Eyes and Thirst of Kirsty Eager’s [Eagar’s] Vampires
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Global Vampire : Essays on the Undead in Popular Culture Around the World 2019; (p. 177-186) This essay seeks to unpack the nature and associated symbolic meanings of the vampires in Kirsty Eager's Saltwater Vampires (2010). Eager's text still remains a bestselling text for young adults in Australia, roughly corresponding to a time period in which it became increasingly clear that this country's meta-narrative was itself in a state of flux. As a vampire narrative its emphasis is naturally linked to "the symbolics of blood" is already located in a "liminal position" (Stephanou 2014, 5). However, this Young Adult fiction is even more so in that it also lies between several intersecting urtexts related to the Australian context and its underpinning history. In particular Eager has used the destruction of the Dutch East India trading vessel the Batavia, which ran aground off the coast of Western Australia on the fourth of June 1629 as an entree and mimetic foundation for her vampire narrative. As is often the case with historical narratives, and in particular vampire accounts, an initial destructive event then "fans forward, ... to become different moments of the one process of sensing" (Taussig 1992, 21). To further elaborate on this process and the context of this essay, "the connection between humans and vampires—whether constructed within fantasy, fiction, fandom or real-life emulation—is a symbiotic one, and one which is sustained by the umbilical cord of memory" (Bacon and Bronk 2013, 2). Wherever blood and memory are comingled in text, understanding the context is an imperative (Gilders, 2004). Therefore, as summarized in ensuing sections, in the Australian socio-historical and literary contexts the linking thread of actuality and memory is "the imperative of blood" (Brisbane 2009,400), of which the Batavia disaster is the first recorded instance.' (Introduction)
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[Review] Saltwater Vampires
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Children's Book Council of Australia , November vol. 54 no. 4 2010; (p. 41)
— Review of Saltwater Vampires 2010 single work novel -
[Review] Saltwater Vampires
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 24 no. 4 2010; (p. 46)
— Review of Saltwater Vampires 2010 single work novel
-
[Review] Saltwater Vampires
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 24 no. 4 2010; (p. 46)
— Review of Saltwater Vampires 2010 single work novel -
[Review] Saltwater Vampires
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Children's Book Council of Australia , November vol. 54 no. 4 2010; (p. 41)
— Review of Saltwater Vampires 2010 single work novel -
'In Need of Vitamin Sea': The Emergence of Australian Identity through the Eyes and Thirst of Kirsty Eager’s [Eagar’s] Vampires
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Global Vampire : Essays on the Undead in Popular Culture Around the World 2019; (p. 177-186) This essay seeks to unpack the nature and associated symbolic meanings of the vampires in Kirsty Eager's Saltwater Vampires (2010). Eager's text still remains a bestselling text for young adults in Australia, roughly corresponding to a time period in which it became increasingly clear that this country's meta-narrative was itself in a state of flux. As a vampire narrative its emphasis is naturally linked to "the symbolics of blood" is already located in a "liminal position" (Stephanou 2014, 5). However, this Young Adult fiction is even more so in that it also lies between several intersecting urtexts related to the Australian context and its underpinning history. In particular Eager has used the destruction of the Dutch East India trading vessel the Batavia, which ran aground off the coast of Western Australia on the fourth of June 1629 as an entree and mimetic foundation for her vampire narrative. As is often the case with historical narratives, and in particular vampire accounts, an initial destructive event then "fans forward, ... to become different moments of the one process of sensing" (Taussig 1992, 21). To further elaborate on this process and the context of this essay, "the connection between humans and vampires—whether constructed within fantasy, fiction, fandom or real-life emulation—is a symbiotic one, and one which is sustained by the umbilical cord of memory" (Bacon and Bronk 2013, 2). Wherever blood and memory are comingled in text, understanding the context is an imperative (Gilders, 2004). Therefore, as summarized in ensuing sections, in the Australian socio-historical and literary contexts the linking thread of actuality and memory is "the imperative of blood" (Brisbane 2009,400), of which the Batavia disaster is the first recorded instance.' (Introduction)
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