Dracul by Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker

It is 1868, and a twenty-one-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here ... A sickly child, Bram spent his early days bedridden in his parents' Dublin home, tended to by his caretaker, a young woman named Ellen Crone. When a string of strange deaths occur in a nearby town, Bram and his sister Matilda detect a pattern of bizarre behavior by Ellen--a mystery that deepens chillingly until Ellen vanishes suddenly from their lives. Years later, Matilda returns from studying in Paris to tell Bram the news that she has seen Ellen--and that the nightmare they've thought long ended is only beginning. A riveting novel of gothic suspense, Dracul reveals not only Dracula's true origin, but Bram Stoker's---and the tale of the enigmatic woman who connects them.

This started out as a solid four-star read for me, which dwindled as I reached part III and read through to the end. The seams really started to show, small errors recurred enough to become real annoyances, and I just got bored and impatient. If only this had been edited with more attention to detail and more dedication to trim the fat! What could have been a fun and spooky romp at 300 pages became too much of a shoddy slog at 500.

But before dwelling on deficiencies, I'll talk about what's good:
- The idea is charming - what if Bram Stoker was inspired by events in his life to write Dracula? This is a lot of fun to explore.
- The characters of Ellen and Matilda are strongly drawn and each sympathetic and compelling in her own way.
- There's some good spooky stuff, well-coupled with mystery. Going in we all know Ellen must be some kind of supernatural whatsit that could inspire a vampire story. But her origin and motivations really captured my curiosity, and watching the kids investigate and find creepy clues gave a nice atmosphere of dread.
- I liked the hints at Stoker's real development as a writer - his dissatisfaction with civil service and insistence on writing theater reviews, his roommate creepily collecting flies, his reflection on bedtime stories about mythical Irish monsters. It makes me want to read a non-fiction account!

And now, what detracted from all that:
- It's pretty clear that this was originally written as a more conventional narrative, then refitted into the “found documents” format. And probably THEN reorganized to have “Now” sections punctuating the journal entries & letters.
- The authors frequently struggle with verb tense, attempting (and failing) to make the “Now” sections present-tense. This results in cringe-inducing passages like “the roaches parted . . . as men scream all around them.”
- As reviewer Roman Clodia mentions, the found documents format adds nothing - rather than creating unique points of view, underlining different levels of knowledge, or creating any mystery or tension, it simply passes the narration ball. At least once, a character refers to himself in third person in his journal, because the authors forgot who was supposed to be writing. It's not only an embarrassing error, but it highlights how little the characters' voices are individualized.
- The world building is at first intriguing, but ultimately confused and lackluster. What are the rules of vampires in this world? I'm not sure. You become a vampire by renouncing Yahweh and being recruited to Satanic Hogwarts? Or just the renouncing is enough? Or being drained by a vampire? Or do you need to drink their blood too? Wait, there are characters who do that but aren't actual vampires. It's kind of a mess. Similarly, Dracul is as powerful as a god at times, and pretty much an average human at others. Unless he drinks, like, a LOT of blood first? Maybe? And vampires have to sleep during the day. But Ellen never did when she lived with the Stokers, and Dracul doesn't need to except when he does.
- The authors' ending note attempts to convince us that Stoker really believed all this and Mina Harker was a real person and all kinds of nonsense that's just insulting to our intelligence and actually just undermined all that went before.

So close to being a fun, good read! I'm hoping it's optioned as a film and the necessary trimming improves these issues. It seems like a prime target for a good screenwriter and director.

I don't usually give up on books but when I got to the scene where one of the Stoker kids is eating saltwater taffy in 1850s Ireland I knew it was time to tap out. There are numerous anachronistic errors throughout, some linguistical, some geographical, some historical but I gritted my teeth and tried to push through. “Saltwater taffy” (a term basically unknown in Ireland, a candy which Wikipedia tells me wasn't even invented in America until the 1880s) was the last straw. I guess I'll never know if Bram Stoker goes on to eat Twinkies and watch baseball.

* Numerous modern words and phrases, along with American spellings in what are supposed to be journal entries and newspaper reports
** Clontarf is described as being “bordered by a park to the east and with views of the ‘harbor' to the west” Any look at a map of Dublin will tell you how wrong that is.
*** Artane Castle was completely demolished in the 1820s; While photography existed in the mid 19th century, it was in its infancy and newspapers certainly weren't printing photographs, let alone of local criminals in what was then rural Ireland.

Well written and a suitable prequel to the classic.

The change of perspective for Part III was a bit jarring, I felt it would have worked better if it had been told in the journal/flashback style of the rest of the book.

Overall a very fine horror novel, and if you are into the Dracula legend at all, it is a very worthy read.

4 STARS

Inspired by Bram Stoker's notes and other texts that he left behind, Dracul is a prequel to the events in his famous novel. This story centers on Bram himself as well as his family, who throughout much of Bram's childhood were served by a nanny with some unusual attributes. Now an adult, the strange occurrences of Bram's and his siblings' childhood are brought back to the surface as they are pulled into a living nightmare.

Similar to Dracula, Dracul is told through the journal entries and letters of various characters, alternating between past and present The tale draws you in and leaves you with a new perspective on the events of Dracula. An enjoyable read for those who liked the classic novel.