Elizabeth Kostova: The Historian

Little, Brown and Company (Hardcover), ISBN 0-316-01177-0

A sixteen-year-old girl, the never-named narrator, lives a sheltered life with her diplomat father in Amsterdam, while he frequently jets off to other countries for conferences. Her mother died many years ago, leaving the girl with almost no memory of her. During one of her father Paul's absences, she discovers a packet of letters hidden high on a shelf in the library. She doesn't read them completely, but begins questioning her father after he returns.

Paul slowly, haltingly, painfully begins telling of his life as a graduate student. After telling his faculty adviser, Bartholomew Rossi, of a strange book discovered in his library carrel, Rossi tells of a similar find. The books possess different covers, but otherwise appear identical -- completely blank pages except for a woodcut image of a dragon with the word "Drakulya." After finding his book, Rossi spent some time academically researching Vlad Tepes -- Dracula. A few hours after Paul and Rossi speak, Rossi vanishes from his office, a bit of blood left behind.

In the present day, Paul and his daughter visit London, and Paul abruptly leaves in the middle of the night. Despite instructions to return home, she pursues her father while she reads the lengthy letter he left for her -- the tale of his actions after Rossi's disappearance. Paul meets a young woman, Helen, who turns out to be Rossi's unacknowledged daughter. The pair pursues Rossi to Istanbul, Hungary and Bulgaria, searching for both the missing professor and the tomb of Dracula himself.

Although difficult to sum up in a couple hundred words, The Historian boils down to historians searching for historians -- the daughter for her father, Paul for Rossi, everyone for Dracula, who appears as both bloodthirsty tyrant and learned scholar bent on keeping the infidel Turks out of Romania.

The frequent switching between present, past and even further past gets a little confusing at times, but writing parts of the story as found historical documents gives the book a weighty, textbook feeling. Elizabeth Kostova's lengthy research shines through in her details. Her descriptions of foreign cities and the lifestyles of their inhabitants put the reader right into those cities. Everything feels real -- not slightly made up like many historical novels. The book drags a bit for the first couple pages, but once the events get moving, they roll right along to the conclusion (featuring a rather obvious "twist"). An entertaining read for the spooky season.

Jen Foote

Jen Foote recently moved to central Florida, where she is a copy editor and page designer at a small daily newspaper. She is ecstatic to live an hour away from the ocean.

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