Dracula's diary reveals a complex, all-too-human character in this lush, entertaining, and generally convincing first novel by an Oxford-trained psychiatrist. Young Laszlo Dracula, second son of a deceased Hungarian nobleman, dreams of devoting his life to the scientific study of the human mind. Sent to Paris in 1866 to become a doctor, 23-year- old Laszlo assists by day at the infamous Salpàtriäre Hospital while socializing by night with the wealthy friends of his cousin, Nichole. Sinister but clever man-about-town Lothar von Pick soon takes it upon himself to introduce Laszlo to a top tailor and a gentlemen's brothel—where he is deflowered by an unbalanced young woman he tends at the sanitarium. Repelled by his unethical behavior yet unable to restrain himself, Laszlo makes a mistress of this vulnerable patient, until a fit of jealousy causes him to "accidentally'' cut her throat and flee Paris to avoid a murder charge. Back in the castle, Laszlo discovers that his older brother has died; he assumes the count's title, responsibilities, and even his wife. A 20-year period of isolation and sexual abstinence follows, until Laszlo again feels the beast within him begin to emerge. Soon, another mistress is murdered in a fit of jealousy, a prostitute is killed during a late-night drinking binge, and, finally, the local village maidens begin disappearing one by one. Rumors of vampires fly through the town as each corpse is found more viciously ravished than the one before—and as Count Dracula, now middle-aged and fully aware of the doom that awaits him, hurtles ever-faster down the slope of sin and degradation. Anscombe's characters are richly drawn, and his pseudo- Victorian prose is a pleasure to read—though once we understand where poor Laszlo is headed, the suspense inevitably begins to falter.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 978-0-7868-6040-5
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
The Stand did less well than The Shining, and The Dead Zone will do less well than either—as the King of high horror (Carrie) continues to move away from the grand-gothic strain that once distinguished him from the other purveyors of psychic melodrama. Here he's taken on a political-suspense plot formula that others have done far better, giving it just the merest trappings of deviltry. Johnnie Smith of Cleaves Mills, Maine, is a super-psychic; after a four-year coma, he has woken up to find that he can see the future—all of it except for certain areas he calls the "dead zone." So Johnnie can do great things, like saving a friend from death-by-lightning or reuniting his doctor with long-lost relatives. But Johnnie also can see a horrible presidential candidate on the horizon. He's Mayor Gregory Aromas Stillson of Ridgeway, N.H., and only Johnnie knows that this apparently klutzy candidate is really the devil incarnate—that if Stillson is elected he'll become the new Hitler and plunge the world into atomic horror! What can Johnnie do? All he can do is try to assassinate this Satanic candidate—in a climactic shootout that is recycled and lackluster and not helped by King's clumsy social commentary (". . . it was as American as The Wonderful Worm of Disney"). Johnnie is a faceless hero, and never has King's banal, pulpy writing been so noticeable in its once-through-the-typewriter blather and carelessness. Yes, the King byline will ensure a sizeable turnout, but the word will soon get around that the author of Carrie has this time churned out a ho-hum dud.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1979
ISBN: 0451155750
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1979
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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