Posted Mar 29, 10 02:48 PM
CHILLER's CHALK OUTLINE: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER
By Seth Grahame-Smith
Grand Central Publishing Hardcover
Publication date: March 2, 2010
$21.99
352 pages
ISBN: 0-446-56308-0
ISBN13: 978-0-446-56308-6
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Seth Grahame-Smith's debut novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, debuted at number three on the New York Times bestseller list in its first week of release and has remained on the list for an astounding forty-three weeks. It has sold over one million copies to date and received phenomenal and critical praise: Entertainment Weekly called it "a delectable literary mash-up;" Wired wondered "Why didn't anyone think of this before?" and Lev Grossman of Time asked "Has there ever been a work of literature that couldn't be improved by adding zombies?"
Grahame-Smith follows up that runaway success with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Grand Central Publishing Hardcover; March 2, 2010; $21.99), an epic chronicle of our greatest president, revealing for the first time his secret lifelong battle with the undead. While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for reuniting the North with the South and abolishing slavery from our country, no one has ever known about his valiant fight against America's vampires or his earnest decapitating of them with his trust ax...until now.
When Abraham Lincoln was nine years old, his mother died from an ailment called the "milk sickness." Only later did he learn that his mother's deadly affliction was actually the work of a local vampire, seeking to collect on Abe's father's unfortunate debts. When the truth became known to the young Abraham Lincoln, he wrote in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become learned in all things - a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose."
The purpose? Elimination of vampires.
Over a century later, Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than one hundred and forty years. Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Grahame-Smith has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time - all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War, and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.
Seth Grahame-Smith is a film and television writer/producer, semi-frequent blogger, and New York Times bestselling author. He has written several non-fiction humor books, including How to Survive a Horror Movie and the much-funnier-than-it-sounds Big Book of Porn. In 2007, he produced the innovative CBS Internet series Clark and Michael, starring Michael (Juno) Cera. In 2009, his Jane Austen-meets-the-undead mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestseller list. It has sold over one million copies to date. Seth is also the Co-Creator/Executive Producer of the MTV comedy series, The Hard Times of RJ Berger. He received a B.S. in Film from Emerson College. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son.
After trading our preferred Starbucks locations, CHILLER and Seth Grahame-Smith log cabin-ed on the secrets behind the author's secret historical phenoms. Definition: the mash-up -- absurd premise literature.
CHILLER: I gotta admit. The first time I came across Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, it was like, "Oh, really?"
Seth: Yeah. A lot of people have that reaction. But when they actually read it, they see that it was done with respect and care.
The one thing I keep trying to get out with this book is that I'm a Lincoln lover. And I became a Lincoln lover and admirer in the process of researching this book and writing it. I really fell for the real Abe in terms of all the tragedy he had to overcome...all of the disadvantages...death after death all around him. I hope that the people who read the book...this will come through in the writing: that this is done with an enormous amount of respect.
Lincoln is as close as we have to a deity in terms of presidents. He's on Mount Rushmore, the five-dollar bill. So you have to be careful how you portray him. One of the reasons I want to get my history right is to protect his personality, albeit turning his ideals up a notch in this absurd backdrop.
CHILLER: I think that's why your book works so well...and your narrative threads the needle between historical and faux documentation. Just how exhausting was this to research?
Seth: It was difficult, but not impossible. That's why I took the time to do my homework for a couple months. By no means am I passing myself off as a Lincoln scholar, but I did want a firm grasp of his real life and timeline. I wanted to be able to describe all things accurately - right down to the clothing. Or what one of his houses looked like inside and out. I wanted to include as much factual history with fictional history.
Putting a big picture together of Lincoln and trying to find out the kind of man he was - the writer, the orator - wasn't especially difficult. It was mimicking that language that proved more difficult than anything. You're trying to write journal entries in the style of the man whose speeches we're all familiar with and was one of the most brilliant writers of the nineteenth centuries - that was more difficult than anything.
CHILLER: I came away knowing a lot more about Lincoln than I could have ever imagined.
Seth: That's the unintended side effect.
CHILLER: And I want to get back to that. But first, take us back to how the first kernel of your idea...popped.
Seth: A couple of years ago, we were getting ready for the Lincoln Bicentennial. It seemed like every single bookstore had a Lincoln table upfront. Like there was a new Lincoln book coming out on a weekly basis. At that time, the Twilight craze was also reaching its critical mass. Inevitably, there would be a vampire book alongside that Lincoln table. I decided a would find a way to combine them...
CHILLER: Makes you wonder what kind of book it might have been had they interchanged two different sensations. Now, you recently did an event at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois?
Seth: The center of Lincoln's legacy. They invited me to come and speak to 400 people, and were so excited about it. They realized that it's a way to bring different audiences into the Lincoln fold.
CHILLER: Hmm. You a Far Side fan, Seth?
Seth: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
CHILLER: I'm suddenly reminded of the cartoon Gary Larson ran about Jane Goodall. Two apes in a tree, and the wife ape plucks a couple follicles from her guilty-looking husband and says, "What's this? Another blonde hair! More 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp!"
Seth: Oh right, right!
CHILLER: Her defenders were up in arms. By the time they reached Jane Goodall, they wanted to sue. But Jane Goodall had already made a T-shirt out of it.
Seth: I love it. The thing is, I got a chance to be on the radio with Doris Kearns Goodwin - probably the literary voice of Lincoln in our time. She had read the book and thought it was a lot of fun, and thinks that this brings more people into the Lincoln fold. That's a good thing.
CHILLER: Period readers and horror fantasy readers are two completely different markets. Are these historical re-imaginings really bringing in new fans or just offering something new to the current fans?
Seth: Both, I think. There were a few staunch Jane Austen defenders who see tampering with anything she does as sacrilegious. And we need those purists, defenders of the faith. But by and large, most of the diehard fans of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies are pre-existing Jane Austen fans. To their credit, they see it as a tongue in cheek way into one of their favorite stories - and frankly, something that turns people onto other Jane Austen works. I've heard from hundreds of people who never would have picked up a Jane Austen book without my having written this book. Now they're inspired to go back and read something else she wrote. Without zombies in it.
The biggest group of people that's likely to run out and get this book are the people who enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. After that, I think it'll interest history buffs and horror fans. In that way, I needed to have something in the book for all those people.
CHILLER: And Abe's first printing was a very healthy 200,000 copies...
Tough question: did you feel awkward at times, Seth - having to think as your characters in terms of 19th century attitudes toward racism and slavery?
Seth: Absolutely. There're a lot of times that I felt uncomfortable - where I really hated the people I was writing about. What they were doing in terms of slave holdings - and the vampires in the book using the evil of slavery to their advantage.
But that was the scene that I was going after: Vampirism and slave holding were essentially the same thing. You're stealing someone else's life and using their blood to enrich your own. That was a very strong through-line in the book. It was a necessary evil to tell the story.
I purposefully steered away from some of the harsher racial epithets and attitudes. Having someone go through the book and hear the "n" word on every page - it wasn't necessary. I didn't want to give those attitudes too much airtime. At the same time, I wanted to convey how brutal slavery was, and how evil and selfish some of these guys were.
CHILLER: A challenging metaphor. Some of the best horror is underlaid with social commentary...
Now then, what can you tell us about the film version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? The latest is that Natalie Portman is onboard, with David O. (Three Kings) Russell set to direct? Were you in the mix to adapt?
Seth: Natalie is starring as Elizabeth, and she's producing with Richard (Donnie Darko) Kelly. David O'Russell is writing the adaptation (as we speak) and also directing, all for LionsGate. David O. is such a proven writer...I'm excited to see his take.
CHILLER: And the day Abraham Lincoln was released, Tim Burton and Timur (Wanted) Bekmambetov scooped up the rights. What more can you share about that?
Seth: That had been in the works for a while. I'd met with Tim, Timur and producer Jim Lemley about the treatment. It's a dream come true to work with these guys: The right people, the right take on the material. They've really included me and have been open to every idea I've had and being very faithful to the book. It's a huge honor for me.
CHILLER: Do you feel that the subgenre is sustainable or saturated?
Seth: I think we're reaching the saturation point. Not that Pride and Prejudice... is in any way comparable to Harry Potter's success, but when Harry Potter came out, it was witches and wizards and magic for a year. When Twilight hit the top of the charts, everyone decided to do a vampire thing. I think that we're going to reach a point where readers collectively roll their eyes over a "this+that+werewolves/zombies" gets released.
CHILLER: Will there be another Seth Grahame-Smith mash-up?
Seth: For me, the next challenge is to keep moving forward into the original story arena - to keep people engaged without a pre-existing source. The book I'm working on now is more in the genre of Stephen King.
Posted by Mike Kalvoda at 02:48 PM