The novel primarily focuses on Pierre, an Anishinaabe vampire who exists in a liminal space between his own inherited Anishinaabe legends and the European mythology forced on his body. The novel extensively uses traditional vampire lore and simultaneously includes details about a variety of Anishinaabe legends, including the wendigo.

Notably, during the approximate period in which Pierre would have become a vampire (the 17th or 18th century), vampire sightings and beliefs caused multiple instances of mass hysteria throughout Europe. While creatures that fit the vampire motif exist in mythologies worldwide, Pierre’s vampiric nature most closely resembles the vampires of European folklore. Pierre’s vampiric traits, such as the inability to endure the sunlight, a monstrous hunger for blood, and supernatural strength, vary in terms of historicity. While drinking blood is a common vampiric motif throughout history and across cultures, many other vampiric traits described in the novel were invented during the boom of vampire literature during the Romantic period or later. For example, Pierre claims at one point to have porphyria, a condition that causes blistering with sunlight exposure. This claim alludes to a scholarly debate around the condition; while it was briefly put forward that porphyria could be a source of vampiric legends, this hypothesis has been largely discredited because the idea that vampires die in sunlight is a relatively modern invention.