‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’ by Seth Grahame-Smith

  Genre mashups seem to be the latest craze in literature, largely thanks to Seth Grahame-Smith's best-seller “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”
  With his latest, Grahame-Smith turns his eye to one of the nation’s most pre-eminent leaders, turning Abraham Lincoln into the Buffy Summers of the 1800s as Honest Abe is revealed to be as skilled a vampire hunter as an orator and politician.
 “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” begins much like “Interview with a Vampire,” with the author himself being provided with the journals of the former president by a fanged visitor who instructs him to write a manuscript based on the diaries.
  Grahame-Smith agrees, knowing he has his hands on a treasure.
  From there the book chronicles Abe’s life from childhood to his assassination.
  Abe first finds out vampires are real from his father, who tells Abe that Abe’s grandfather — always thought to have been killed by Shawnee Indians — was in fact slaughtered by a vampire.
  Much in this way Grahame-Smith blends fact and fiction, mixing in or substituting vampires where the truth might allow.
  For instance, history suggests Abe’s mother died from milk sickness, or poisoning from drinking tainted milk. Grahame-Smith includes this information, but furthers the story, as Abe later discovers that a vampire killed his dear mother, which sparks his rage and leads him to vow to kill every vampire in America.
  As Abe matures he meets many real-life characters who would influence his future, including his first love Anne Rutledge, Denton Offutt, Jack Armstrong and his future wife Mary Todd.
  During his travels he also meets Edgar Allan Poe, who (of course) knows all about vampires — telling Lincoln how hunters drove the undead out of Europe, forcing them to come to America, where they found freedom from hunger and fear.
  “America was a paradise where vampires could exist without fierce competition over blood. A place where it was common for families to have five, or eight, or a dozen children. They loved its lawlessness. Its vastness. They loved its remote villages and its ports brimming with the newly arrived. But more than anything, Lincoln, they loved its slaves. For here, unlike any other country fit for civilized men — here was a place they could feed on the intoxicating blood of man without fear of reprisal!”
  So the stage is set.
  Lincoln, long an abolitionist, has only more reason to pursue the end of slavery.
  As he climbs the political ranks, all the while hunting his prey, Abe realizes his country is in grave danger. By the time he’s president it’s clear the Union is divided.
  Abe knows many slaveholders are in cahoots with the vampires, thus he’s willing to wage war, not only to free the slaves but to save their lives. The South will not go quietly, though, and sends vampires into battle to fight the Union soldiers. With so much division, Abe knows in the end the war will be bloody, and as he signs a bill calling for new troops, he makes a note in his journal.
  Let us pray now for the future dead. Though we do not yet know their names, we know that there shall be far too many of them.
  “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” walks a fine line but walks it well. Grahame-Smith writes the book as mostly biography — the majority being fact — with a true-life person here or there being a vampire or being killed by one.
  Readers familiar with Lincoln’s life and the history of the Civil war will appreciate Grahame-Smith’s spin. Hopefully, those less familiar with the 16th president or the war that left hundreds of thousands of Americans dead will have their curiosity piqued and be inspired to do their own historical research.
  While “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is an entertaining read, sometimes the truth can be just as fascinating as fiction.