Dracula the Un-Dead

Fly to Ottawa the Capital city of Canada to be a presenter at the Ottawa International Writers Festival Oct 25-26. This was a very impressive gathering of writers from across Canada, authors were invited from Scotland, England, and the US. The festival consisted of a wide variety of methods of presenting works of literature. Some authors read passages, others where interviewed on stage individually and in groups, while some visited local schools and made presentations. The main venue was a beautiful old Catholic church called St. Brigid’s in the downtown portion of the city. On Sunday afternoon I made a 20 minute Power Point presentation showing the Stoker family connections to Bram Stoker, the research notes e used for writing Dracula, and I expanded on my research for Dracula the Un-Dead. I was then interviewed by a very knowledgeable young professor of Gothic English Literature Sean Moreland from Nipissing University.
It was exciting to be back in Ottawa after many years, the volunteer who picked me up at the airport actually works for Sport Canada, her former boss, Michele Pellerin, was the official who I worked closely with for many years when I was the National Coach for Modern Pentathlon Canada.
First thing Monday morning I took the 2 ½ hr train ride to my former hometown; Montreal. I had a wonderful time reconnecting with old places and making new acquaintances. A newspaper journalist Bram Eisenthal wrote a very nice article about me and brought me to the home in Westmount were I grew up and took some photos of me standing in the front yard. Throughout the day the Penguin publicist Wendy Bush- Lister brought me to T.V. and radio appearances and interviews with print journalists.

At Casa De Popola a trendy literature “hang out spot” bar I shared the stage with Alex Galant and his wife Carmen who where dressed in full 1912 period costume as they read a few passages form the script for the Un-Dead dramatic reading Alex was producing and Directing the next night in Toronto. I made a presentation about the writing and research behind Dracula the Un-Dead, and was honored to have my Uncle Patrick, his daughter Carlotta, her husband Ralph, and my cousin Thornley Stoker in attendance.

Early the next morning I was off to the airport to fly to Toronto, for a day and a half full of interviews primarily TV and radio. The main event the next day was the rehearsal and production of the staged reading at the Bathurst St Theater. Alex did a great job finding outstanding professional actors and actresses, and called in many favors to produce a fine show with excellent effects. Shannon Mulholland and Richard Zampella from MODA entertainment in New York did a tremendous amount of work to promote this event. Their efforts resulted in a very full house for the two hour performance. Penguin Canada’s Barbara Bower also deserves kudos for putting together a fantastic and creative book launch in the three cities where I visited.

No rest for the weary, Ian and I were up at 3:30am to be driven to the Toronto Airport for a 6:20am flight to New York. We were meeting Carrie Thornton and Carrie Swetonic from Dutton publishing at the Barnes and Noble.com headquarters to film a 10 min trailer to coincide with the release of New Moon. The trailer was tracing Vampires in literature starting back with Bram Stoker and moving onwards to Stephanie Meyer’s New Moon.
Later that day I had a series of phone and email interviews from my hotel room, followed by a book signing event at the Borders bookstore in The Time Warner Center.

The next morning I was up early 7:30am for two hours of radio call in shows, a series of nine interviews from all over the country. Our final event was a screening of Todd Browning’s 1931 Dracula starring Bela Lugosi. MODA organized Ian, Alex, Carmen and I to be guest speakers at this screening at the Arts Cinema in Huntingdon Long Island. It was lots of fun to watch the old classic again, and answer questions from a very enthusiastic audience. Flying home on Halloween to South Carolina was very surreal, many airport workers and airline gate attendants were dressed in costumes. It gave new meaning to how the sprits of the night and the dead travel fast!

Jenne, Belle, & I flew to Madrid on November 16th, and were greeted by lovely, warm weather possibly arranged by publisher and editor, Patricia Escalona from Roca Editorial. Roca put us up in the beautifully renovated Hotel de las Letras, a popular spot for many of Madrid’s publishers and their visiting authors.
During my three-day visit, about five other authors were in Madrid, with schedules similar to mine. The customary routine unfolded, which included numerous one-on-one interviews with journalists, and a few photo sessions. I made an appearance on Spanish CNN, with an interview with Antonio San Jose, a highly regarded literary critic. The superb organizational skills of Patricia and Roca Editorial shone during a press conference in Hotel de las Letras, which was attended by fifteen journalists and book critics from various news agencies, newspapers, and radio. At the press conference, I had the honor of being introduced by Javier Sierra, author of the best-selling novel “The Secret Supper”. Javier had taken a particular interest in Dracula and our sequel, and his introduction and perspective on Dracula the Un-Dead set the tone for a really productive press conference. Javier and I had lunch afterwards, and having been in the game for years, he kindly shared some of his experiences, and offered advice to me- a first-time author.

The next day, Jenne and Belle came along with Patricia and me on the high-speed train to Barcelona for another day full of TV interviews and a book signing. In Barcelona, our escort for the day was the Roca publicist, Sylvie, who could not have been more accommodating. Barcelona is a beautiful coastal city, vibrant and still bustling after hosting the Olympics in 1992. Ironically, in this lively city I spent a majority of my time filming two separate interviews in the same cemetery. It was interesting to note that in Spain, Dracula the Un-Dead had been out for one month and like the Dutch, Roca was already into their second printing.
Back in Madrid, our last day was mercifully a vacation day for me. I joined my wife and daughter as all-out tourists; we took a riotous open-top bus tour, bought some souvenirs, and had a very nice last supper.
As it turned out, a trip to Lisbon was not necessary, as I was able to convince the Portuguese journalist to come to me in Madrid, rather than my using my one free day flying to Lisbon and back.
The trip home was uneventful except it was fraught with the usual frustration of the “cattle being lead to slaughter” system that the Atlanta airport has in place for arriving international passengers. The more I travel thru this airport, the more I build my resolve to pay lots of more money to arrive somewhere else and walk home!

On Halloween I flew home to Aiken for a few days of R&R before my next trip to Europe. I was also able to accommodate requests for telephone and email interviews from Brazil, Argentina, and Germany, countries I have not made plans to visit. 

After a restful week, I left on November 9 for Amsterdam for twelve hours of interviews spread over two days. These interviews were a mixture of print, TV and radio, and fortunately, translation was not necessary. In The Netherlands, it seems everyone speaks English-as well as two or three other languages.  The Mynx publicist Marc van Biezen proved to be very welcoming- also efficient, organized and pleasant. Mynx has been very pleased with the early book sales: they are already into their second printing- the first having been released mid October. My schedule was very busy, so I spent very little time outside my beautiful and quaint hotel, which was situated next to a very active canal.

 The twelfth of November was a beautiful clear day, and my flight to Milan, Italy afforded me a spectacular view of the Alps. I could not imagine more beautiful scenery, as every small mountain village nestled under the snow capped peaks seemed special.

 On my first evening in Milan, I had the pleasure of having drinks with two gentlemen, school counselors by profession, who a few months prior had parts in the first Italian production of the Dean- Balderston stage play, Dracula. They had played the characters Renfield and Harker, and their passion was obvious as they described their preparation for the roles.

The next morning I met with the Piemme publicist, Arianna Malacrida and translator Chiara Bertolino who would spend the next 3 days ushering me around Milan, Rome, and Cuneo from one interview to another. On that Thursday morning, my wife Jenne and daughter Belle arrived to join me for a week. My days proved to be quite full, but I did have time in the evenings to be with my family, who seemed to alternate between exhaustion from jet lag and building up their endurance visiting shops and trying out their Italian phrase book.

On Friday, the troupe from Piemme escorted me to Rome for a series of interviews. One of these interviews is most memorable- the lovely Italian television hostess strayed from the usual line of questioning when she brought up a possible film adaptation of Dracula the Un-Dead and asked what I thought about casting George Clooney and his girlfriend, an Italian model, in the lead roles. Of course the audience loved the idea and cheered wildly.

I flew to Turin with Arianna, then drove on to meet Jenne and Belle in Cuneo, a lovely small town at the foot of the Alps. I had a translator with me the entire time, but Jenne and Belle had the adventure of driving the three hours to Cuneo often at 150 kilometers per hour in a cab, with a driver and another passenger who spoke no English. In Cuneo, we attended Scrittorincitta, an annual book festival whose schedule left time to explore. Our hotel was on the town’s very large cobblestone square, which was surrounded by shops, restaurants and hotels. Little alleyways wound throughout the town and led from one amazing architectural treasure to another. Although the weather was cold and gray, we found enough coffee shops to keep us warm and energized. 

I was one of only four foreign authors present amongst the one hundred and twenty Italian authors, and the language barrier kept us from taking advantage of attending other writers presentations. And although we were at a disadvantage at restaurants with only Italian on the menus, we made the best of whatever it turned out we had ordered, and chalked it up to experience.   The Italian language is so beautiful and melodic, we all  enjoyed being surrounded by it. I particularly love how the translation of Jack the Ripper into Italian could smooth out the rough implications of the name; phonetically “Jackolas Quatre Torry”. The publisher, Piemme, had a large presence at the festival, and we were well cared for throughout the weekend.

Media Studies by Charlie Thomason
Book Review: “Dracula: The Un-Dead,” the official sequel by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt
December 14, 2009 at 11:27 am

Even though Bram Stoker’s Dracula now rests peacefully in the public domain, the fact that his estate would approve an official sequel should tell you something right away about the caliber of the story. Despite having Bram’s great-grandnephew, Dacre, as co-writer, there are so many ways this great idea could have gone wrong—given the extent to which the Dracula story has been used and abused. Nevertheless, Dracula: The Un-Dead is an outstanding work of pure imagination… and that has nothing to do with how you feel about the original.

Set in the year 1912 (”twenty-five years later”), Un-Dead focuses primarily on Mina Harker and her son Quincey (an aspiring actor), along with Lord Godalming (formerly Arthur Holmwood), Van Helsing, Bram Stoker himself, and a great Shakespearean actor named Basarab. When both Jack Seward and Jonathan Harker are savagely and suspiciously murdered, Scotland Yard calls on Inspector Cotford—the man who investigated Jack the Ripper. Meanwhile, having learned about his mother’s old affair with a vampire, Quincey Harker decides he wants nothing to do with his family and begins learn from the mysterious Basarab. (And that’s all I can tell you without getting into spoilers.)

Though the story is billed as the “official sequel,” the overview on the official website bills it as “deeply researched … and lovingly crafted as both an extension and celebration of one of the most classic popular novels in literature.” This is, perhaps, more to the point; given that the original Dracula book and its author play a significant role in this new story, an “extension” is far more appropriate. Co-writers Stoker and Dracula-scholar Ian Holt have obviously done an immense amount of research for this and, thus, the result is something much different from the original—which is, in my opinion, a good thing.

The story moves incredibly fast, though it’s easy to understand; generally the story is just intense, both thematically and in terms of pace, rather than complicated in details. The authors aren’t afraid to build your love and devotion to certain characters, only to then brutally snatch them away later on. Even though the plot is based in actual history, it’s never all that predictable and the very end is well worth the wait. My understanding is that Stoker and Holt wrote this, instead of a screenplay, as their first step toward a motion picture. That much is clear just by reading the book—the way they can create a visual image of the story in your head is almost terrifying sometimes.

Lastly, it should be noted that this is not a children’s story: very mature, modern themes are incorporated into this book, such as rape, drug-use, homosexuality, sadism, and what you might call “anti-family values.” Though it’s not necessarily a sad story, it will make you reconsider everything that you have come to know about the famous vampire.

As for my own satisfaction with this read… I would go so far as to say I enjoy it more than the original, though that may be largely due to it being a more contemporary style of literature. I love the nonfictional references, the way it retells the original story, and the new developments made to old characters. Though there are a million ways the film adaptation could truly fail, I am very optimistic as this is a novel fully prepared to become a motion picture. So, congratulations to Stoker and Holt on a job well done! Dracula: The Un-Dead is, by far, the best book I’ve read all year and has turned me back on to the horror genre in written form.

Paris Launch of Dracula the Un-Dead

October 14- 20, 2009

The degree of excitement generated in France by Dracula l’Immortel was both evident, and impressive to Ian and me when we landed in Paris. Our French publisher Michel Lafon went all out, producing a wonderful edition of our book, as well as creating a powerful advertising and promotional campaign.

Two weeks prior to our arrival, the publisher had flown eight Paris based journalists to Romania for two days and a night in Bran Castle, Romania’s only restored castle from Vlad Dracula’s era. The journalists had been given the history of Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula, as well as the connections between the novel and the historical Transylvanian leader Prince Vlad Dracula. They even enjoyed a traditional feast in the castle, with stewed bear as the main dish!

Rather than a castle, Michel Lafon provided us rooms in a wonderful boutique style hotel. Ian and I were quite happy with these accommodations during our five days in Paris- — and the more delicate French cuisine.

Ian and I quickly fell into to what is becoming to us a routine of book launches. This meant two days of back-to-back, hour-long interviews with a variety of journalists, with only short breaks in between.  While in Paris, we worked closely with Michel Lafon’s head of publicity, the lovely Sylvie Gauthier, who had been working with us long distance during the past eight months. Sylvie briefed us each morning, explaining the significance of each interview, and advising us the direction questions may go, based on the readership or audience.

Ian and I lapsed into our own normal routine of dividing the relevant answers based on our areas of expertise. The interviewers provided some welcome deviations with specific and different angles they thought their readers would enjoy. It was evident during interviews that the journalists who had taken the Romanian trip had a far greater degree of interest and insight into our story than some others with whom we met.

The Paris highlight was our Friday night presentation and book signing at the Virgin mega store on the Champs-Elysees. A two story billboard depicting the beautifully designed Michel Lafon cover of  Dracula l’Immortel, dominated the front of the four story building. Inside the bookstore’s main hall, thirty television screens and one large Jumbo Tron screen streamed live video of Ian and me, as we answered questions (which were all translated) from the stage to the one hundred or so spectators.

 French journalists take Saturday off, so Ian and I were free to play tourist during the day. We took a bus tour and saw all the sights, even managing the obligatory souvenir shopping before reaching our saturation point. I was delighted I was able to schedule a Saturday dinner engagement with the Irish Ambassador to France, Paul Murray, who recently wrote a biography of Bram Stoker. Paul is assisting me as I represent the Bram Stoker Estate, in preparing an application to the Dublin City Council to gain their approval for a statue of Bram Stoker to be placed in Dublin.

The early part of Sunday turned out to be a much needed rest day, in anticipation of our reward for good behavior. Sylvie was able to arrange through Michel Lafon Publishing,  tickets to Moulin Rouge. All I can saw is WOW, an amazing dance revue, beautiful ladies, great costumes-or lack thereof, and exquisite set designs. Ian and I had a great time, and have resolved to behave better more often!

Our last full day in Paris revolved around more interviews, followed by a wonderful send off dinner, given in our honor at a local Romanian restaurant. The dinner was attended by the Michel Lafon staff and assorted journalists, some of whom of had been on the Bran Castle trip. They appeared quite relieved not to be served bear again.

Ian and I can’t say enough about our French publisher Michel Lafon, head publicist Sylvie Gauthier, their entire staff, and all of their efforts toward promotion of our book. We are so thankful that back in 2008, Elsa Lafon, a beautiful and energetic lady, fell in love with our manuscript at the Frankfurt book fair, and made the commitment to publish

Dracula l’ Immortel for us.