Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter – Seth Grahame-Smith

Abraham Lincoln is known for many things, but until recently, it was not known to what degree his life was influenced by vampires. Lincoln’s mother died while he was still a boy, but Abe didn’t hear the full story about the cause of her death until a few years later when his father was drunk enough to tell him the truth. A vampire was involved. From then on, Lincoln dedicated himself to hunting down every vampire in America. Vampires would also later claim the lives of his sweetheart and children, making him even more determined to drive them out of the country. His passions led him to politics, and his connections led him to the White House, and there he led a war that was not for men, but would be fought by men. Yes, the Civil War was actually a war of vampires, fought by their human puppets and partners. This biography, relying heavily on Lincoln’s secret journals as its source of information, gives us all the truth that “Honest Abe” didn’t tell.

“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is a fun book. After you make it through the intro (which I found to be slightly confusing and not entirely relevant), it is a quick and entertaining read. Grahame-Smith writes it as if it really were a well-researched historical biography. It has proper block quote format for the extended journal excerpts, and it even has footnotes about other sources and relevant information! The one problem with all this is that the story comes loaded with dates, locations, and people that I didn’t think were exactly necessary. I was reading pretty quickly, so I always skipped over places and dates, and if I couldn’t pronounce the names, the people didn’t matter much either. It didn’t hamper my understanding or enjoyment of the book. And just in case anybody cares, the vampires in Grahame-Smith’s book seem to stick to most of the rules for vampires set forth in “Dracula,” not so much like the shimmery “Twilight” vampires, except that there are good and bad vampires.

I’ve only read two books by Grahame-Smith (the other was “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”) and I have to say I’m a pretty big fan of his. His ideas are hilarious (let’s update a classic novel with a few random and completely disconnected zombie attacks thrown in), and his writing is easy to understand, making for joyously light (or dark, depending on how serious you take his subject matter and metaphors) reading. Definitely worth picking up, especially if you haven’t read a Lincoln biography before. I don’t know much about Lincoln’s life, and I’m not sure how much more I really know now, but I’m sure at least one or two things in there are actually true.