Halloween Read: Who Was Dracula? by Jim Steinmeyer

A strange Frankenstein's-monster mash-up of three genres in one; literary criticism of Dracula, biography of Bram Stoker, and microhistory of the settings and characters of Stoker's life.  Despite some strange seam-lines and jumps in topic, I thought it was a clever and fairly adept combination, providing apt analysis of the author, the writing, and the nature of the character of Dracula through different perspectives and possibilities.

Who Was Dracula? Bram Stoker's Trail of Blood
Jim Steinmeyer
ISBN: 9780142421888
Finished Oct. 30, 2014

First off, you'll only like this book if you like all of the components therein: biographies (of Stoker, and of other characters from the time-period: Walt Whitman, Henry Irving, Oscar Wilde...) micro-histories (mainly of the theatre, but we get a bit about Jack the Ripper, and about American tours of theatrical companies, and a view of the theatrical/artistic set's socializing and infighting) and literary criticisms (No, Dracula as a character wasn't an attempt to exact revenge on Irving, and can we get over how Dracula is about sex?  We all KNOW it's about sex, we have eyes, we read the book already).

If none of those make you roll your eyes out of your head, then you're in for a treat.  We stick with each non-book subject long enough to get into it (and sometimes long enough to think, "wait a moment, this is really interesting stuff about Stoker's other books/Irving and the Lyceum/Jack the Ripper/Oscar Wilde, but I don't think I've seen anything about Stoker or Dracula in the past four chapters") and then in the next chapter, you're back to Dracula again.

It wasn't at all what I expected, and aside from a cringe-worthy quotation from the author responsible for glittery vampires excusing her not having read Dracula, it was better than I expected; more history, less supposition.

I will say that the underlying question remains mostly unanswered, although hints drop that Steinmeyer tends towards the "it was a composite of lots of influences" school of thought, rather than "it was meant to strike back at Irving" or "It was Jack the Ripper!" suppositions.

I liked the 'coda' towards the end explaining how Stoker's widow used her tenacity and a timely membership in an Author's Society to fight back against Nosferatu (although I'm so glad she failed in destroying it) and to stage critically awful and popularly brilliant versions of Dracula across England and the USA in order to keep herself in mint.  Stoker would have been proud.