Paul Bibeau, Sundays with Vlad

In Sundays with Vlad, author Paul Bibeau takes a (mostly) light-hearted look at Count Dracula, both the historical figure and the vampire of legend. He is interested particularly in the relationship between the two, how Vlad the Wallachian prince—an ill-starred fellow who worked through his issues "by killing a whole mess of people"—became tied up with the blood-sucking fiend of creature features and cereal boxes.

Bibeau explores the topic of vampirism from a number of different angles, some of them rather surprising. He writes, for example, about his trips to Romania, where he visited the remains of the historical Vlad's castle and traced the journey of Bram Stoker's character Jonathan Harker. But there are also chapters on an old attraction on the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey—Castle Dracula, which burned down in 2002. And Bibeau actually interviews the woman who came up with the names for General Mills's pair of monster cereals, Frankenberry and Count Chocula.

Bibeau also explores the world of modern-day "vampires"—from role players to consenting adults who really do drink one another's blood to people who've crossed the line from bizarre to genuinely dangerous. In the end, he ties it all together as a study in globalism: Westerners appropriated the historical Vlad and transformed him into an endlessly malleable international cultural icon.

Sundays with Vlad begins very well, with stories of the author's early fascination with monsters and his honeymoon in Romania:

"As we moved deeper into eastern Europe, the buildings got flimsier and the toilet paper got harsher.... Nothing could prepare us for Romania."

Bibeau is frequently very funny, though not all of his humor lands, and occasionally the narrative wanders into tangents that don't fully justify themselves. Still, the book is interesting on the whole, and more than a little unsettling: there are some very strange people out there doing some very strange things.