You know you're getting old when sleeping with a vampire no longer gives you a sickly thrill. At the age of ten or eleven, having absorbed the requisite number of creaky old Bela Lugosi films, I evolved such a baleful Dracula-fear that I began sleeping every night with one arm slung backwards over my neck. This neurotic and slightly awkward posture - still habitual, I'm embarrassed to say - was meant to be prophylactic: even while snoozing, I figured, I'd be ready to fend off any emissaries from the undead who tried to bite me.

LRB 24 June 2004 | PDF Download