Small-town life inspired Charlaine Harris' vampire series

From Miami Herald

MAGNOLIA, Ark. -- Vampires typically roam the fogged streets of London or the humid nights of New Orleans, opulent worlds filled with beautiful monsters and formal balls.

Trailer parks and honky-tonks didn't fit -- until author Charlaine Harris took a chance with a telepathic barmaid named Sookie Stackhouse.

Now, Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries series has hit The New York Times Bestseller List, gained fans far beyond her south Arkansas town and inspired a television series on HBO. Though fueled by sex, violence and hints of humor, Harris' novels hold a mirror up to a South where race and societal change permeates through her prose.

Still, the mother of three says her only concern at first was finding something that would sell.

''I'm no crusader,'' Harris says. ``I just like to make a point. If people get it, good. If they don't, OK.''

Stackhouse's fictional hometown of Bon Temps, La., resembles the South in which Harris grew up, a South filled with waitresses who wear Keds sneakers and shop at Wal-Mart. Trailers dot the pastures outside the north Louisiana town, and pickup trucks fill the parking lot of the bar where Harris' heroine works.

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