cover image THE JOURNAL OF PROFESSOR ABRAHAM VAN HELSING

THE JOURNAL OF PROFESSOR ABRAHAM VAN HELSING

Allen C. Kupfer, . . Forge, $19.95 (204pp) ISBN 978-0-7653-1011-8

Spoof, send-up or wannabe spook tale, this addition to the "vampire culture" that Kupfer claims is all too real today attempts to go for the throat but misses any vital artery. This slim novel purportedly contains an 1886 diary by the famous vampire hunter Van Helsing of Dracula fame, annotated by Kupfer's long-lost grandpa and unearthed in Kupfer's grandmother's attic. Clearly smitten by Keats's "Lamia" and "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" (Swinburne's overheated Lady of Pain), as well as by Lord Byron's darker proclivities, Kupfer struggles to give Van Helsing's jumpy journal entries a credible 19th-century flavor, though occasional flare-ups of Americanisms dilute the Transylvanian atmospherics. Kupfer's narrative professorial persona also updates his various subnarrators' tales with pseudo-scholarly footnotes that include an evidently irresistible whack or two at stingy academic administrators. Van Helsing's diary includes entries both before and after his London adventure that resulted in the gory destruction of Dracula, recounted far more satisfactorily by Bram Stoker. Embellished with befanged drawings signed "V.H.," Kupfer's little tale has all the depth of a comic book—without any of its whiz-bang pop art fascination. (Apr. 27)

Forecast: The publisher has shrewdly timed this book's release with that of the film Van Helsing, which promises to be one of the summer's blockbusters. Expect a lift from film-goers who don't realize the two are unrelated.