Horror, Thrillers, Erotica

The Secret Life of Laszlo, Count Dracula

Name: The Secret Life of Laszlo, Count Dracula
Author: Roderick Anscombe
ISBN: 9780061009433

by Roderick Anscombe

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Overview

In his mesmerizing fictional debut, psychiatrist Roderick Anscombe takes readers into the fevered mind of Count Dracula the man - aristocrat, doctor, and helpless killer of young women. There are no vampires in this stunningly erotic reinvention of the classic myth, only tormented human beings. Tortured by his own perverse desires, the distinguished Dr. Dracula is drawn to posses and destroy young women, first in Paris where he is studying with the renowned pioneer of hypnosis, Charcot, and then in the Hungarian countryside, as the Count takes over the deteriorating family estate. Even as he maintains the facade of the aristocratic life, Dracula is drawn inexorably into a world of violent emotion, blood lust, and self-loathing. Swirling between the scientific fact and superstition of the day - and propelled into the medical epidemics and politics of the Austro-Hungarian empire - Dracula becomes a public saint and a private savage, and all the while a plausible and pitiable human being. Here is a novel not of the supernatural but the all-too-human, not of a monster but a man. The Secret Life of Laszlo, Count Dracula is a bravura performance from a marvelous new writer.

Based upon the premise that there have never been vampires--only terrible, tortured human beings--this stunning reinvention of the Dracula myth is a superb novel of evil, madness, and twisted sexuality. Psychiatrist Anscombe creates the mind and "memoirs" of Count Dracula: aristocrat, doctor, killer. National print adverstising.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Anscombe, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist, takes the recent trend toward the humanization of vampires the final step, making the Dracula of his subtle, consuming fiction debut a mortal man. A Hungarian medical student in Paris when he starts this diary in 1866, the inexperienced Laszlo becomes infatuated with a sensual patient at the Salpetriere hospital. Passion turns to fury, bringing the affair to a deadly end, but Laszlo escapes when he is rushed back to Hungary on the death of his elder brother. Now Count Dracula, Laszlo marries his brother's saintly widow and manages to cling to an ascetic life for 20 years until a local girl reawakens his lethal passions. Protected by his hereditary status and a new role as savior when a typhoid epidemic threatens the village, Laszlo pursues the shadowy connection of sex and violence until it becomes the inescapable union of petite mort and mort , love and murder. His motivations are not psychological banalities but something more mythic--the need for an absolute possession that unites the bestial and the divine. Nor is Laszlo insane: he recognizes the ``familiar moral landmarks'' and is surprised when he ignores them. Well written with a swift plot and moral and psychological complexity, Anscombe's novel is an engrossing read all the way through to its macabre climax and ambiguous finale. $150,000 ad/promo. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club featured alternate; author tour. (Sept.)

Library Journal

In this stunning first novel, psychiatrist Anscombe breathes new life and fire into the timeworn legend of Dracula. Laszlo, the 19th-century Hungarian Count Dracula, is not a supernatural creature of the night but rather an entirely human, socially prominent gentleman who has studied in Paris. Unfortunately, this cultured fellow has a mad, dark side, and when he allows himself to explore his fascination with blood, sex, and death he turns into a demoniac murderer. Amazingly, as Laszlo recounts his violent story of lust and self-loathing, he emerges as a perverse but not entirely unsympathetic character. Anscombe has done a masterful job of fusing character development, historical detail, and action in this lush, erotic novel. Sure to be popular with Anne Rice's fans, this is appropriate for any fiction collection. Highly recommended.-Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, Ind.