Drac with a vengeance

"I am not claiming we are the perfect recreation of Bram’s work but we are a continuation,” says Dacre Stoker, great grand nephew of Bram Stoker, relaxing in Buswell’s Hotel, Dublin on a recent promotional visit.

“I can’t say it’s what he intended but I did research his biographies and try to understand him. It is a reconnection with the characters in a manner, I hope, similar to what he would have done, with a little modernisation.”
Since the 1897 novel the Count has undergone many transformations, from Murnau’s 1922 classic Nosferatu, to Bela Lugosi’s depiction in the 1931 film Dracula, through schlock Hammer Horrors to modern guises. Now Dacre, together with screen writer Ian Holt, has added to the stock pile with Dracula: The Un-dead.
“Over the years there have been many adaptations,” he notes. “Our character is not exactly Bram’s character. It is a fairly good rendition resulting from the research that we have done.”
Indeed the Count in his latest incarnation is quite a colourful figure, displaying a range of emotions and capable at times of evoking sympathy from the reader.
“Ian got the idea for the character based on the knowledge he drew from McNally and Florescu (historians and experts in all things vampiric), who reveal that the real Dracula was a Romanian hero,” he explains. “Really, he was misunderstood. He was a good man who committed atrocities in the name of Christianity, to hold off the invading Ottoman Turks. He made his forest of the impaled to scare off the army and he did it in the name of God.”
“This was the basis for giving this Dracula voice,” he continues. “In Bram’s book it was all in the epistilatory fashion, he didn’t have a voice, he has a presence but he doesn’t get to tell his side of the story. Giving Dracula a conscience isn’t an original idea either, Anne Rice did it with Interview With The Vampire.”
As well as these modifications, Dracula is given a female nemesis. In a similar manner to the Count she is based on an a historical figure, Elizabeth Bathory, a 16th century Hungarian Countess.
“We bring in a formidable foe in Bathory!” laughs Dacre. “In her time she was convicted of murdering lots of girls and draining their blood to bathe in.”
Another real person who appears in the novel is Bram Stoker himself.
“One of my conditions was that I wanted Bram in the story,” states Stoker. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought to write him. I got quite a few varying opinions in the four biographies I read. I also spoke extensively to his great-grandsons. I wanted to paint a realistic picture. Harry Ludlum (biographer) said it very well, ‘He was an unremarkable man who wrote a remarkable story’.
He wasn’t superflash but he was very reliable, as his friendship with Henry Irving illustrates – a good second-in-command.”
Stoker also had many notable acquaintances of which little is known due to his humble nature.
“He never liked the limelight, “ says Dacre. “Though he had a long correspondence with Walt Whitman. He also had a good relationship with Mark Twain, who actually wanted him to produce a play of his. But the Lyceum theatre burnt down and so went the script. He also enjoyed mutually respectful relationships with Gladstone and Roosevelt.”
Bram’s notes, housed in the Rosenbach Museum, were the primary fodder for the current tome.
“My wife and I took a trip to the museum in Philadelphia,” remembers Stoker. “The idea was to look for something that didn’t make it into the original. The first thing that we noticed was that there were no police in his story. So I developed the idea of a policeman called Cotford.”
The various strands began to develop further when the two writers acquired the services of researcher Alexander Gallant.
“We needed someone to research London, Paris and Amsterdam in 1912,” says Dacre. “We weren’t making any money from this and probably wouldn’t for a while so Alex said he would come on board for a share of profits. He put forward the idea of including the Ripper plotline as the location and time were similar.”
As Alexander was researching period details Ian and Dacre were working on other aspects of the story.
“Each of us did our two parallel stories. Though we bounced chapters off each other to make sure styles were consistent, we were emailing back and forth like crazy!”
Dacre was not the first Stoker to be approached by Ian with the idea for the book.
“Originally he had approached Florescu and McNally and then my Uncle Patrick. They all rejected him. Ian tracked me down and called me up and said ‘Look, I want to do a movie project but we need to do a book first, do you want to do this with me?’ After a while I flew up to New York and we met, we sketched outlines discussed a starting point and what was going to become the basis for a sequel,” he explains.
Dacre, a former Pentathlon Coach for the Canadian Olympic team, was very apprehensive in the beginning.
“I had never written anything like a book, all I had written was a few newsletters and coaching manuals!”
His lack of experience did not stand in the way of family support.
“I just asked for their blessing and everyone said, ‘Yeah, fine, go for it Dacre.’ They were all behind me from the start.”
Dacre’s life has not been overshadowed by his legendary ancestor, in fact he only first read the title in his university days.
“I was aware of my Stoker heritage but it wasn’t a big issue,” he says. “Others made a bigger deal about it. People in the neighbourhood would joke, ‘Is it safe to go to the Stokers? Are you serving a Bloody Mary?’”
To date the film rights have not been sold but the manuscript has been sent to all the major studios. Holt and Gallant have been working on a parallel script.
“Our manager is looking at gathering together independent investors so we have more control over the final product,” reveals Dacre. “This is prefereable to the leap of faith we’d have to take if a studio purchased the book and screenplay rights. We’ll have to see what the response is.”
Book sales and films aside, Dacre says his ultimate goal is to remind people of his ancestor’s enduring legacy.
“I hope this book will help highlight Bram’s work and our aim is to bring a statue of Bram to Dublin.”

Dracula: The Un-Dead by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt is out now through HarperFiction