The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula
Adult/High School–Nuzum taps into a pervasive thirst for vampire mythology and culture. His examination of the enduring popularity of everyone's favorite monster is oddly respectful as well as hilariously irreverent. Discussions of the real Vlad Dracula, and of Bram Stoker's background and writing, are informative, and the author's acute psychological observations are enlightening. The flesh-and-blood of the book, however, is Nuzum's willingness to throw himself into his research, often with hysterically funny results. He drank his own blood, saw 605 vampire movies (overwhelmingly awful), took a vampire tour of San Francisco led by Countess Mina, went on a tacky and sometimes dangerous vampire tour of Romania, did a stint as a vampire in a haunted house, and attended aDark Shadowsconvention. With heavy doses of self-deprecating humor, Nuzum recounts these experiences while slyly exposing the silliness of vampire culture. The liberal use of profanity may turn off some adults, but worldly wise teens are unlikely to be so fainthearted.–Paula Dacker, Charter Oak High School, CACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.