PUBLICATION DATE: MARCH 2, 2010

braham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith is a novel concerning the lesser known ambitions of the sixteenth president of the United States to become a vampire hunter. A mysterious character named Henry hands the secret diaries of Abraham Lincoln to Seth Grahame-Smith, which serves as the premise for the book. This retelling of the events, that marked the president’s secret life, is told part from the author’s omniscient perspective, and part from Abraham himself via his diary excerpts. The president’s story begins with Abe Lincoln as a child and follows the well-known and lesser-known facts of his life all the way through until his inevitable assassination. Young Abe endures the death of a loved one that he cannot forgive at the hands of a vampire, and thus resolves to hunt and kill every “living” vampire in America.  His mentor is a vampire who instructs him on the ways of the undead and occasionally calls upon Abraham throughout his adult life to destroy those vampires which sully the good name of the undead, many of whom existed in the South before the Civil War and fed on unsuspecting slaves.

The blend of fiction with meticulous attention to historical fact makes for a very interesting read. Though it is not the typical vampire novel, it does contain the essentials: stories of transformations, gore, religious references, unquenchable love and death. Much of the book is written from Abe’s perspective, using excerpts from the discovered diary, so the language is a mixture of narration from current-day Grahame-Smith and the soliloquies of a centuries-old president. Despite this conflict, the book reads without the expected difficulty, and is broken up on the page quite nicely for the reader to easily differentiate which frame of mind to be in.

For the vampire novel nut, this may have a slightly different feel to it than the typical bloodthirsty book. The romance of love, war and gore exists, but it is sandwiched in between eloquent diary entries by the president and days spent documenting his long waits for the kill or arguing his case to the Cabinet. If looking to read an interesting slant on history, this is the read for you. In what I feel is more than just a novelty concept, Grahame-Smith has tempered a deeper level of a readable vampire story, which is sustained through the whole book. Had my history textbooks been written so alluringly, I may have opted for a history major instead of the ever-useful English degree. The author’s “spoonful of sugar” indeed helps the medicine go down, making learning about historical (and fictional) events enjoyable.