« New mysteries. New day. Fresh doughnuts. » — David Lynch
Welcome to the bewitching burg of Blinsh, Pinksylvania, where vampires peacefully coexist with ‘normal-type Blinshites’, though the latter do exhibit a touch of grumpiness when suddenly bitten by their fanged neighbours. Put on your cape (surely you own a cape?) and follow us to this land of boiled turnip and sauerkraut doughnuts… but I would recommend not going on an empty stomach.
The pages of Vampires of Blinsh (Sept. 2020, Abrams Books for Young Readers) are positively overflowing with jolly vampires, promenading chickens, sneaky racoons, people tripping over bikes, floating basketball players, children munching doughnuts, janitors in eyepatches, and so on. In short, a typical Daniel Pinkwater creation, and I say this with the utmost delight.
This book was illustrated by Aaron Renier, whom I already knew from his young readers series The Unsinkable Walker Bean. The latter definitely has its heart in the right place, but failed to fully capture my interest, though I can confirm the art was great, so I was happy to see Renier’s drawing talent matched up with a story I could really sink my fangs* into. Not that Vampires of Blinsh has a story, per se – which seems to have baffled a few readers, some of whom, judging by their reviews, found it confusing and indecipherable. VoB is more of a quick dip into the non sequitur, somewhat absurd, always charming world of Pinksylvania, as readers are taken on a quick tour of Blinsh, its twin sister city Blorsh, as well as the capital of Pinksylvania, Farshningle. Many potential storylines are hinted at, but none are lingered upon, as Pinkwater effortlessly flings ideas (of which he clearly has an abundance) around and pirouettes on to the next vignette.
It actually turns out that this book was in no way the result of a straightforward collaboration between artist and writer. Co-admin RG got the story from the horse’s mouth (the horse, naturally, being DP), and here I quote Pinkwater’s anecdote**:
« The book had a completely different text. It was one of those cumulative counting stories. […] The book was written before Covid, the illustrator did his thing, with no input from me at all. And when it was ready for publication, the editor, the illustrator and I all realized it would seem we were making sport of something that looked like going to be a worldwide catastrophe…making sport or trying to capitalize on an event that would cause millions of deaths. People would break our windows. So we decided to kill the book. For all I know the bound copies, (which may have already been on the boat), were dumped into the sea. I own two sets of proofs. I asked my colleagues if I could try to come up with a new text, not a single drawing to be changed. They let me do it. It was printed with my new words, and that’s the book you have. The three of us promised each other we would never tell the story I’ve just told you– (I am not to be trusted). Now I wish we had let the original version be published. We could have sent a copy to Donald Trump. If someone read it to him, he might have understood the nature of a pandemic, and lives could have been saved. »
Were Blinsh and Blorsh even part of the original tale? Who knows. Let’s chalk it all up to serendipity and wander off to procure Kat Hats (Sept. 2022, Abrams Books for Young Readers), another Renier-Pinkwater collaboration .
~ ds
* I used to have pointy canines, until my orthodontist decided to file them down without asking for my opinion first – and this is by no means a unique experience, as is evidenced from any discussion on social media about the delights of orthodontistry. Some of those ‘professionals’ are true ghouls.
** Pinkwater’s Anecdote is less known than, say, Occam’s Razor, Chekhov’s Gun or Russell’s Teapot, but maybe we can squeeze it into the pantheon of eponymous principles anyway, something like ‘entertaining stories can be found wherever Pinkwater goes‘.
Who's Out There? 