There is something quietly devastating about a story that understands how trauma echoes across generations. Tribes by Jerrick Payton opens with a deceptively simple premise — vampires live among us in the American South — and proceeds to build something far more emotionally complex than the genre label might suggest. Published in 2022 by Dorrance Publishing, this debut novel is the first installment in what promises to be an ambitious supernatural series.
Set initially in the fictional town of Scarleton and later in the urban sprawl of Claret City, the novel follows David Harris across decades — from a wide-eyed ten-year-old playing hide-and-seek to a grown man raising his own son in the shadow of secrets. Payton structures the narrative as a coming-of-age epic told in two generational waves, and this dual timeline is where the novel finds its beating heart.
The Architecture of a Fractured Bloodline
David’s Childhood and the Weight of Inheritance
The first half of the novel belongs entirely to young David Harris, living with his father Henry, Aunt Debra, and Uncle Chris in an idyllic home surrounded by Southern forest. Their warmth is palpable from the opening pages — Debra’s animated restaurant stories, Chris’s quiet good nature, Henry’s tender life lessons. But this is a vampire family, and the world outside their door views them as abominations.
When the HAV — Humans Against Vampires, a group of organized hunters — descends upon the Harris household, the aftermath lingers long after the page is turned. Young David fleeing into the woods, alone and orphaned, makes for one of the most emotionally resonant sequences in the book. There is a moment where he catches a rabbit, starving, only to release it when he notices a smaller rabbit watching — a father and son pair. That wordless act of recognition is where Payton’s storytelling instinct shines.
David is eventually adopted by Ben and Andrea’s warm family, a pastoral interlude of fragile normalcy. Tragedy finds him again and again, pushing him across state lines and eventually into the arms of Dorian, the woman who will share both his life and his vampiric nature.
Henry’s Awakening and the Sins of the Past
The narrative shifts dramatically with a chapter titled Eighteen Years Later. David is now a father, married to Dorian, working at a slaughterhouse in Claret City. Their son Henry is turning eighteen and suffering from debilitating headaches — the first signs of his dormant vampire nature activating. He is shy, self-conscious, and deeply reliant on his best friend Craig for social confidence. He is, in many ways, the mirror image of his father at that age.
The introduction of Gina, a magnetic new girl at Henry’s school, shifts the story into higher gear. When she reveals that her family are werewolves — descended from the same creation myth involving the goddess Evelia — the mythology of Tribes by Jerrick Payton expands into something genuinely fascinating. Vampires and werewolves share a common divine origin, their blood capable of healing one another, their fates intertwined across centuries. It is mythological world-building that feels organic rather than encyclopedic.
Thematic Undercurrents That Elevate the Horror
What distinguishes Tribes by Jerrick Payton from conventional vampire fiction is its sustained focus on identity, belonging, and the cyclical nature of violence. David spends his entire life hearing the same lesson: “Never be ashamed of who you are.” His father says it. David repeats it to his own son. And yet the world punishes them relentlessly for being exactly what they are.
The HAV functions as more than a villain faction — it examines how prejudice breeds its own monstrous logic. Hannah, David’s most personal antagonist, watched a vampire murder her parents as a child. Payton does not excuse her actions, but he allows the reader to understand the wound that created them. This moral complexity is one of the novel’s most commendable accomplishments.
Meanwhile, the VAHTS corporation — a shadowy pharmaceutical company engineering artificial vampires — represents institutional, profit-driven horror. The revelation that VAHTS experiments on people “who won’t be missed by society” carries uncomfortable resonance beyond the supernatural premise. When the epilogue unveils the identity of VAHTS’s leader, the implications for future installments become staggering.
Craft, Pacing, and Narrative Voice
Payton writes in a clean, dialogue-heavy style that prioritizes emotional immediacy over ornamental prose. The conversations feel lived-in, particularly the banter between Henry and Craig — Craig’s persistent infatuation with Donna Martinez, his endearing verbal tics when nervous, and the easy teasing between them all contribute to characters who exist beyond the page.
The pacing rewards patient readers. Payton lets David’s relationships breathe before disrupting them, making losses land with real emotional weight. The eighteen-year time jump transitions into a new generation without losing the connective tissue of what came before.
Key strengths of the narrative include:
- Generational storytelling that draws clear emotional parallels between David’s childhood trauma and Henry’s coming-of-age crisis
- Mythology building rooted in the goddess Evelia, whose blood created both vampires and werewolves
- Character-driven horror where the most frightening moments arise from betrayal, loss, and the discovery of one’s own capacity for violence
- A compelling villain ecosystem spanning individual antagonists, organized hate groups, and corporate evil
The Emotional Core: Family as Both Shield and Vulnerability
If there is a single throughline in this novel, it is that family is simultaneously the thing worth protecting and the thing that makes you most vulnerable. David loses his birth family to violence, is adopted into a new family and loses them too, builds a life with Dorian, and faces the possibility of losing everything once more. Each iteration deepens the reader’s understanding of what these characters carry.
Henry’s arc mirrors his father’s in ways both touching and ominous. When Craig is murdered by a VAHTS-created vampire, the grief transforms Henry from a gentle teenager into someone frighteningly determined. David recognizes the look because he has worn it himself.
Aspects that will resonate with readers:
- The psychological toll of hiding your true nature from the world
- Romantic relationships built on honesty and shared vulnerability
- The tension between a parent’s desire to protect and a child’s inevitable reckoning
- Supernatural mythology that feels culturally rooted rather than borrowed
Where Tribes Fits in the Broader Landscape
Tribes by Jerrick Payton occupies a space between Southern Gothic tradition and contemporary urban fantasy, with emotional undertones recalling Octavia Butler’s generational weight and Tananarive Due’s community-centered horror. This is Payton’s debut novel, and it demonstrates a storyteller with clear ambitions and genuine instinct for emotional truth. Fans of the following titles may find a kindred spirit here:
- Fledgling by Octavia Butler — reimagining vampire mythology through identity and belonging
- The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez — multigenerational vampire storytelling
- The Good House by Tananarive Due — Southern setting with inherited supernatural legacies
- A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson — intimate, emotionally driven vampire fiction
- The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix — Southern vampire horror rooted in community
Final Thoughts: A Saga Worth Sinking Your Teeth Into
Tribes by Jerrick Payton asks you to care about its characters before it asks you to fear for them, and that ordering of priorities is exactly what makes its horror land. It is a story about what gets passed down through bloodlines — not just fangs and red eyes, but grief, resilience, love, and the stubborn belief that the people you choose to call family are worth every risk. For readers seeking supernatural fiction with genuine emotional depth, this debut installment offers a promising foundation and a world rich enough to sustain the sequels to come.
