Sunday, October 7, 2012

History Revamped: A Writer’s Review of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith


Flashplot: Anyone who’s made it through high school history knows the basics of Lincoln’s difficult life. Now take every tragedy, every death, and every accomplishment and attribute it to vampires. This is Seth Grahame-Smith’s work in a nutshell.

As a reader: Though my ridiculously simplified plot summary might make this piece sound utterly unbelievable to the point of being humorous, I assure you it’s not. Grahame-Smith weaves a dark and twisted fictional tale into the history American readers are familiar with in a way that makes it easy to suspend one’s disbelief long enough to get lost in the novel. The story is cleverly crafted in that sense. It took tremendous imagination to twist facts into fantasy. However, despite the numerous tragedies Lincoln faces, I still found him a difficult character emphasize with. My favorite characters were those of the author’s creating; it was in the scenes with Henry where Grahame-Smith’s characterization shined. I also found the pacing of the novel slowed in parts due to what I saw as Grahame-Smith’s desire to work in more of the history than what was needed to pull along the fictional tale he was telling. Finally, I loved the opening of the book with the modern-day setting and character, who is introduced as our story-teller. It was this slide into the fantasy world that allows readers to face and then dismiss their own disbelief, so the fact that the book never really returns to this character and his interactions with Henry is terribly frustrating and disappointing. Though I loved the last line of the book, I really wanted a quick epilogue to return to the present day and the book’s narrator.

As a writer: There is no doubt that the author of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter did his homework. Grahame-Smith does a wonderful job of writing in a voice that matches what readers would expect that of Lincoln to sound like. He also did a nice job of writing from his “own” voice. (He is supposedly the writer who meets with Henry at the start of novel tasked with telling Lincoln’s tale.) What started to bother me, both as a writer and a reader, as the novel progresses, is the frequency with which he slips in and out of these two narrations. Lincoln’s parts are supposed to be pulled from his diaries or letters, which is interesting, except when one scene or event is told with numerous excerpts interrupted constantly with the outside narration being used to fill in the gaps. It got to be too choppy and had me wondering if perhaps the writer was taking the easy way out by slipping into his own voice when Lincoln’s would have been a harder but more fluent choice. The only other flaw in an otherwise well-written piece was Lincoln’s character development. Obviously Grahame-Smith was challenged by developing a character who was rooted in a real historical figure. Given how interesting the author’s own characters were, I feel he would have been better served by allowing himself the freedom to re-envision Lincoln entirely without worrying so much about the constraints of reality.

Bottom line: As a fantasy fanatic, a writer of vampire books, and a lover of history I enjoyed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I’m not sure it’d hold the attention of readers without these passions, but it is certainly a unique and entertaining view of our nation’s past!