This is one of the weirder sounding titles in the bunch of vampire books I’ve been reading. Written by Seth Grahame-Smith it tells the story of Abraham Lincoln from childhood to his assassination and a little beyond. The vampires in the story are hidden from the majority of the population but have gained control over the Southern states though their support of slavery (they use the slaves as a ready source of food and pay very well for the chance).
Historically very accurate I certainly learned a lot about Lincoln. It’s written in a mock academic style so has lots of description and journal extracts proving the point. There is some gore but really low level – the worst are the atrocities described in the civil war and many of those were the result of man-made weapons.
I have one reservation and that is I can’t decide if the Vampire angle diminishes what he argued for or not. In the story he’s against vampires because they killed his mother (Milksickness being changed so it’s the result of drinking tainted vampire blood) and the idea that they use slaves for food. His fight for equality is as much about the need to cut of the supply of humans to the vampires to force them to leave, as it is about the idea all men are equal. Despite this doubt it was a interesting read and certainly told me a lot more about that period of American history than I expected.
