New York Review of Books Review

Vampire fiction and the imperishable celluloid spawn of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" could easily fill a library all by themselves. Until now, however, none have borne the imprimatur of Stoker's great-grand-nephew, who has conspired with a screenwriter on a bloated sequel that blends the Stoker biography with Dracula lore, operatic violence and sadomasochistic lesbian eroticism. "Dracula the Un-Dead" forsakes the epistolary format of its forebear in favor of a penny-dreadfulish narrative pitting the first book's surviving characters against a monomaniacal vampire countess. By pushing the events of Stoker's original back to 1888 and setting their follow-up in 1912, Stoker and Holt are able to connect the fictional Dracula with the actual Jack the Ripper. John Barrymore and Bram Stoker himself are among the real-life luminaries who figure in a campy mash of historical fiction and romance-novel leering that smells of some unholy alliance between E. L. Doctorow and Barbara Cartland.