Fangland

by John Marks

Overview

As the popularity of Elizabeth Kostova's bestselling The Historian proves, there's always an audience bloodthirsty for quality, page-turning horror. Now, in a marvelously horrifying turn, John Marks-a former 60 Minutes producer-sinks his satirical teeth into twenty-first- century media. In Fangland, Evangeline Harker is an employee of the legendary TV news magazine The Hour. Sent on assignment to Transylvania, she delivers more than a story when mysterious e-mails, coffins, and a creepy guy named Torgu descend on the New York office. This darkly funny tale will appeal to vampire and horror aficionados as well as anyone who's fed up with what passes for "news" today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143112532
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/29/2008
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	810,228
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.84(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

The former bureau chief of U.S. News & World Report in Berlin, where he lived for five years, John Marks has written for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. He holds an M.F.A. from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and is currently a domestic correspondent at U.S. News & World Report. He lives in New York City.

What People are Saying About This

Audrey Niffenegger

Fangland is the rare real thing. . . . It'll grab you and not let go. (Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife)

From the Publisher

"Archer creepily depicts Evangeline's mesmerizingpsychological and physical journey…. Archer's tour de force interpretation…grips listeners." —-Booklist

Keith Donohue

Love and death, sex and violence, satiric wit and genuine horror: Fangland has it all. (Keith Donohue, author of The Stolen Child)

Editorial Reviews

"Fangland is the rare real thing. . . . It'll grab you and not let go."
-Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife

"John Marks has written the best vampire novel since . . . Interview with the Vampire."
-The Buffalo News

"Love and death, sex and violence, satiric wit and genuine horror: Fangland has it all."
-Keith Donohue, author of The Stolen Child

From the Publisher

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

The Buffalo News

Former 60 Minutes producer Marks (The Wall) puts his experience on the legendary TV news magazine to good use in this highly inventive reimagining of Bram Stoker's Dracula. His na ve protagonist, Evangeline Harker, a young producer for the TV news show The Hour, reluctantly accepts an assignment into the wilds of Romania to explore doing a segment on a legendary criminal figure, Ion Torgu. Evangeline soon finds herself at the very outskirts of civilization, and after hearing a missionary's account of a supernatural plague that affected a whole community in Africa, she's accosted by Torgu himself, doing an excellent impersonation of the vampire count. Her subsequent imprisonment in a deserted hotel also parallels Stoker's tale, but Marks manages to make the familiar fresh, so that even devotees of the original will find themselves rapidly turning pages and being drawn into Evangeline's fate and the stories of her friends and colleagues at The Hour. (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

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.

Library Journal

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.

Kirkus Reviews

Four talented narrators tackle a modern-day vampire tale, told via emails, therapy journals, and diaries. The story starts at “The Hour,” a documentary TV show. The author’s history as a “60 Minutes” producer gives realism to the depiction of an average workday and makes the story’s ghastly details even more chilling. Listeners journey with Assistant Producer Evangeline Harker to Romania to lure an Eastern European gangster on-screen. Instead the interview serves as a vehicle that gives Dracula himself access to a post-9/11 New York City. Harker's disappearance and resurgence months later at a Transylvanian monastery wreaks havoc with the lives of the entire staff of the news show from the lowliest editor to the aging and paranoid senior executive. D.P.D. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

AUG/SEP 07 - AudioFile