Product Description

An acclaimed novelist and former 60 Minutes producer grandly reinvents the Dracula epic in the halls of a certain television newsmagazine

In the annals of business trips gone horribly wrong, Evangeline Harker's journey to Romania on behalf of her employer, the popular television newsmagazine The Hour, deserves pride of place. Sent to Transylvania to scout out a possible story on a notorious Eastern European crime boss named Ion Torgu, she has found the true nature of Torgu's activities to be far more monstrous than anything her young journalist's mind could have imagined. The fact that her employer clearly won't get the segment it was hoping for is soon the very least of her concerns.

Back in New York, Evangeline's disappearance causes an uproar at the office and a wave of guilt and recrimination. Then suddenly, several months later, she's heard from: miraculously, she's convalescing in a Transylvania monastery, her memory seemingly scrubbed. But then who was sending e-mails through her account to The Hour employees? And what are those great coffin-like boxes of objects delivered to the office in her name from the Old Country? And why does the show's sound system appear to be infected with some strange virus, an aural bug that coats all recordings in a faint background hiss that sounds like the chanting of...place-names? And what about the rumors that a correspondent has scored an interview with Torgu, here in New York, after all? As a very dark Old World atmosphere deepens in the halls of one of America's most trusted television programs, its employees are forced to confront a threat beyond their wildest imaginings, a threat that makes gossip about an impending corporate shakeup seem very quaint indeed.

Written in the form of diary entries, e-mails, therapy journals, and other artifacts of early-twenty-first-century American professional-class life, compiled as an informal inquest by a very interested party, Fangland manages both to be a genuinely-in fact triumphantly-frightening vampire novel in the grand tradition and a, yes, biting commentary on the way we live and work now.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #849209 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Former 60 Minutes producer Marks (The Wall) puts his experience on the legendary TV news magazine to good use in this highly inventive reimagining of Bram Stoker's Dracula. His naïve protagonist, Evangeline Harker, a young producer for the TV news show The Hour, reluctantly accepts an assignment into the wilds of Romania to explore doing a segment on a legendary criminal figure, Ion Torgu. Evangeline soon finds herself at the very outskirts of civilization, and after hearing a missionary's account of a supernatural plague that affected a whole community in Africa, she's accosted by Torgu himself, doing an excellent impersonation of the vampire count. Her subsequent imprisonment in a deserted hotel also parallels Stoker's tale, but Marks manages to make the familiar fresh, so that even devotees of the original will find themselves rapidly turning pages and being drawn into Evangeline's fate and the stories of her friends and colleagues at The Hour. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Professional and personal aspirations collide when Evangeline, an ambitious associate producer of The Hour ("the most successful news show in American television history") accepts Robert's wedding proposal just before jetting off on an assignment she would rather dodge. Her uber-producer dismisses her protestations, so it's off to Transylvania to evaluate a possible story on Romanian reputed crime lord Ion Torgu. Marks' sense of place (a horse and wagon in front of a Coke sign symbolizes the transition from communism) and tone-setting emphasis on blood and bloodlines kick in early as Evangeline mulls over blending her Italian Irish heritage and Robert's mix of Creek Indian and the U.S. marshals who fought them, a union represented for her by the engagement ring she insists on wearing to meet the small, pale Torgu, who proves a kind of terrorist, and who infects her "like a virus" when she is abducted. She resurfaces months later, recuperating in Transylvania and recalling nothing. A scary twenty-first-century take on the stuff of Dracula, worthy of its rightful place among others. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
One of the most unforgettable retellings of DRACULA one could ever imagine. It takes a rare talent to make a seductive, perhaps even murderous female protagonist into a symbol of a strong modern woman, but John Marks has done just that. Ambitious, career-minded, yet vulnerable, Evangeline Harker is the anchor to an equally ambitious and powerful novel. -- Mitch Cullin, author of Tideland and A Slight Trick of the Mind

With wit and fury, John Marks describes a media culture so obsessed with image that it is powerless to resist the malevolent force of true evil. There are several monsters in Fangland, but the most dangerous ones appear every night, smiling on your television screen. -- John Twelve Hawks, author of The Traveler

Customer Reviews

So you thought you knew all about vampires...
Well, think again! In this amazing, weird, genre-bending and -blending, different-from-any-other-book-you're-likely-to-read novel, you'll get to know a particularly nasty specimen. Forget the teeth - this vampire uses a saw and a bucket. But FANG LAND isn't only a smart and frankly terrifying retelling of Bram Stoker's classic (which it is indebted to on a structural level, too); Marks uses the foil of the vampire novel to say some pretty serious things about why our media suck. (Excuse the pun.) And he does so with a satirical edge that is all the sharper because he used to be a producer for 60 Minutes himself. A great read and more profound than you'd think. The cover is spectacular, too.

Not your grandfather's vampire story - 10 stars
This is a new a completely new take on the old monster. Comparing this book to Bram Stoker's Dracula beyond the structure and a few scattered similarities is doing both a disservice. Certainly the author offers an homage to Stoker with certain story elements, as all vampire stories must do else there be no real reference for the casual reader to recognize. But this is a unique and uniquely modern novel in every way.

I will let other's summarize the book for you, but instead just give my take as a jaded, constant reader. This book is one of very few I would read more than once because a) it was so good the first time and b) I actually think that a second reading would be even more revealing and powerful given how the story so defied my expectations.

The author has written a very sophisticated and seductive work. It is very literate and very smartly done. The best thing about this book is that it takes the thread of an idea that has been so overworked and actually makes the idea riveting and fresh in a new skin. Fangland offers you many gifts as a reader: mounting, suffocating dread, truly shocking horror, likeable and hate-able characters, a mature and subversive sensuality and even moments of dark wit to name but a few.

Frankly, in hindsight, this is one book in which I would rather have not even read the jacket summary (it shouldn't have one because you can't convey the richness of it in a couple of paragraphs) and had just dove into the story and let it take me completely by surprise with no preconceived notions. Maybe the jacket summary could have simply said "The Silence of the Lambs meets Dracula meets The Office" and then let your mind take it from there. And while I would love to see this on the big screen, I can't think of a single living director who could tackle it. It would be destined as yet another case of "the book was better".

Do not miss this treat. You do not have to be a horror fan to love this book. You have only to be human.

*** Update: "Das Films and Blumhouse Productions are teaming on an adaptation of John Marks' novel "Fangland" that is shaping up as a star vehicle for Hilary Swank, says Variety."

Due in 2009, the two-time Oscar Winner will play Evangeline Harker and her production company will also co-produce the film. No word yet on who will direct or who will play Ion Torgu that I can find.

Dracula updated!
Fangland can basically be described as an updated Dracula. In fact the main character, a young woman is named Evangeline Harker, just like Stoker's classic Jonathan Harker. There are even a few names that are re-used as well. Evangeline is a reporter for a TV show called the Hour. She is sent to Romania to interview a possible crime lord named Ion Torgu, who presumes the role of Dracula. Although it is never said if he is truly a vampire, he is something else that is not of this world however.

Similar to Stoker's tale, Evangeline remains too long on her trip and doesn't return at the appointed time, but for some reason someone is taking over Evangeline's life and sending emails in her name and shipping strange crates back to the office. Evangeline loses her memory of the duration of the trip and when she returns home her memories slowly return to her and the terror of them drives her insane. A horror has taken over the people of the Hour and Evangeline must do all that she can to defeat the monster.

Overall a very good book. If you've read Stoker's classic Dracula you'll love this modern new twist. As mentioned before there are a few names that are similar if I'm remembering correctly. A must read for all Dracula fans, you won't be disappointed.