Fangland: A Novel

by John Marks Narrated by Ellen Archer, Todd McLaren, Michael Prichard, Simon Vance

Overview

An acclaimed novelist and former 60 Minutes producer grandly reinvents the Dracula epic in the halls of a certain television newsmagazine



In the annals of business trips gone horribly wrong, Evangeline Harker's journey to Romania on behalf of her employer, the popular television newsmagazine The Hour, deserves pride of place. Sent to Transylvania to scout out a possible story on a notorious Eastern European crime boss named Ion Torgu, she has found the true nature of Torgu's activities to be far more monstrous than anything her young journalist's mind could have imagined. The fact that her employer clearly won't get the segment it was hoping for is soon the very least of her concerns.



Back in New York, Evangeline's disappearance causes an uproar at the office and a wave of guilt and recrimination. Then suddenly, several months later, she's heard from: miraculously, she's convalescing in a Transylvania monastery, her memory seemingly scrubbed. But then who was sending e-mails through her account to The Hour employees? And what are those great coffin-like boxes of objects delivered to the office in her name from the Old Country? And why does the show's sound system appear to be infected with some strange virus, an aural bug that coats all recordings in a faint background hiss that sounds like the chanting of...place-names? And what about the rumors that a correspondent has scored an interview with Torgu, here in New York, after all? As a very dark Old World atmosphere deepens in the halls of one of America's most trusted television programs, its employees are forced to confront a threat beyond their wildest imaginings, a threat that makes gossip about an impending corporate shakeup seem very quaint indeed.



Written in the form of diary entries, e-mails, therapy journals, and other artifacts of early-twenty-first-century American professional-class life, compiled as an informal inquest by a very interested party, Fangland manages both to be a genuinely-in fact triumphantly-frightening vampire novel in the grand tradition and a, yes, biting commentary on the way we live and work now.

Editorial Reviews

The Buffalo News

John Marks has written the best vampire novel since . . . Interview with the Vampire.

Publishers Weekly

The unusually large cast that reads Marks's multiperspective, modern vampire story helps make up for the lack of special effects one might expect. There is no creepy music, no doors creaking or wind shrieking through the trees to augment the tale of what happens after Evangeline Harker, a lovely assistant producer of a venerable TV news show, travels to Romania to meet a fabled gangster. Her trip goes horribly wrong and soon her colleagues in New York are afflicted as well. Marks, a former 60 Minutesproducer, is at his best when writing about the life of the newsroom, which we witness through the conversation and thoughts of people who are all concerned about Harker's disappearance and the horrors that have followed, but who observe each other and the rest of the show's staff with keen distrust and disdain. This reading adds little to the chilling story aside from the varied voices, yet as a novel take on the worn-out vampire story, with a steady drumbeat of macabre events alternating with dryly funny commentary, it is sure to hold listeners until the end. Simultaneous release with the Penguin Press hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 6). (Apr.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Library Journal

New York TV producer Evangeline Harker travels to Transylvania to interview reputed Eastern European crime boss Ion Torgu for a segment on The Hour. They meet one evening in the town of Brasov, where Torgu strongly suggests that they will be more comfortable at his own hotel in a desolate area only a short distance away. Although wary of this sinister man, Evangeline reluctantly agrees but that night finds herself locked in her room. Her attempt to escape takes her down an unlit, fetid stairwell, where she encounters Torgu at his most monstrous, chanting words of death and feasting on blood. Meanwhile, back in New York, Evangeline's family and coworkers realize that she has disappeared, no one can locate her, and mysterious coffinlike boxes are being delivered to the television studio. Marks (The Wall) has written an electrifying modern tale of horror that pays homage to Bram Stoker's Dracula. He goes much further, however, creating a hideous vampire more horrifying than anything that ever came from Stoker's imagination. Highly recommended for all fiction and horror collections.[See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/06.]-Patricia Altner, BiblioInfo.com, Columbia, MD Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Dracula meets 60 Minutes in this portentous horror novel from a former 60 Minutes producer (War Torn, 2003, etc.). The story begins with the recently engaged Evangeline Harker, an associate producer with the TV news show The Hour, arriving in Romania to check out Ion Torgu, reputed organized-crime boss of Eastern Europe, for a possible interview. In Bucharest, Evangeline meets another young American, Clemmie Spence, a purported missionary who actually works for an organization fighting Satanism. The women travel to Transylvania, where Evangeline meets Torgu; he drives her to a spooky hotel in the woods. More vampire than crime boss, he has round, hideously discolored teeth (not fangs), a serrated knife and two accomplices who have murdered a Norwegian cameraman; Evangeline will come upon Torgu drinking blood. She escapes and reunites with Clemmie, but by now, Evangeline has grown "a dark, new self," which she appeases by slitting Clemmie's throat and drinking her blood. So much for the Romanian segments; the story's other half, overcrowded with characters, takes place in the offices of The Hour in New York, and is told through emails and journal entries of its employees. Torgu manages to infect the office. Editors sicken from a wasting disease; some staff members die; others display odd behavior. Allegiances shift in puzzling ways; a former friend of Evangeline becomes Torgu's slave, while the lady herself (now back in New York) seems unsure whether to kill her fiance or make love to him. Torgu makes his own appearance at the office as the scene dissolves into chaos. A disappointment for horror fans; though Romania provides good, scary fun, the New York scenes are a mess.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170956593
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	01/25/2007
Edition description:	Unabridged

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