Vlad

By: Carlos Fuentes, Alejandro Branger - translator

Narrated by: Robert Fass

"Vlad" is Vlad the Impaler, of course, whose mythic cruelty was an inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. In this sly sequel, Vlad really is undead. More than a postmodern riff on "the vampire craze", Vlad is also an anatomy of the Mexican bourgeoisie, as well as our culture's ways of dealing with death. For - as in Dracula - Vlad has need of both a lawyer and a real-estate agent in order to establish his new kingdom, and Yves Navarro and his wife Asuncion fit the bill nicely.

Having recently lost a son, might they not welcome the chance to see their remaining child live forever? More importantly, are the pleasures of middle-class life enough to keep one from joining the legions of the damned?

©2004, 2012 Carlos Fuentes (P)2012 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Critic reviews

"A deliciously barbed bagatelle from a fiction master, with perhaps a strain of allegory for a world devoured by rapaciousness." ( Publishers Weekly)

gross

gross did not finish it is very disturbing no trigger warnings there should be involving children