In 1920s Fredericksburg, Virginia, young country boy Middy Grove sets out on his own, working at a pickle factory and searching for a place for himself in a constantly changing town uncertain of its identity.

One day Middy finds himself drawn to a mysterious city girl with bobbed hair and eyes that seem to shine in the darkness from under her brimmed hat. Like she's some angel fallen from Heaven, he never seems to fully draw her attention, though she always leaves him with the strange phrase "You're too good for me."

Uncertain of her meaning, and slightly emboldened, Middy finds the girl in and out of his life, woven into the pastiche of a city stuck in the past yet thrown into the future. Where does she come from? Who is she? More importantly, why do the men she draws in with her beauty eventually fall to ruin? When Middy learns the truth, he finds the price of vengeance and the depths some men are willing to allow themselves to go.

A Vamp There Was blurs fact and fiction through the lens of historical events and life in Fredericksburg in the 1920s. Complementing the novella are an essay and biographies concerning the character type known as the vampire, or "vamp" for short, which first arose in American popular culture, eventually becoming a true phenomenon by the 1910s through actress Theda Bara's depiction of the "vampire" in the 1915 film A Fool There Was.