A History of Vampires in New England--Thomas D'Agostino

photo: Book cover from Goodreads.

I'm only the third person to rate this book on all of Goodreads...Just sayin'.  For more of my book reviews, my book list, and other nerdy book-related things, please visit my Goodreads site here.

The previous two reviewers gave this book an average of two stars.  I don't see how, as it never pertains to be something it isn't.  It's a book that reviews, summarizes and, frankly, rehashes information that's already out there, but puts it all in one place, and does so with a website's writing feel to it.  (If anything, the real complaint is the $17 tag Borders had put on it.)

Of particular interest to me were the stories of the vampires I'm incorporating into my novel--or trilogy, or whatever--tentatively titled THE GRAVEDIGGERS.  These, mostly, are the stories of Sarah Tillinghast, Nellie Vaughn and Mercy Brown, all woven into one.  (Nellie Vaughn being more or less a mistaken Mercy Brown, but with the now infamous epitaph on her gravestone; and I focus more on Stukeley Tillinghast, Sarah's father.)  And there's a lot to say about them, specifically because the author comes from my neck of the woods, and so is able to write about his visits to some of the places in his narratives.  I've been to some of these places myself, so it was interesting to see pictures of places I have already been to, and to compare our impressions and thoughts.  Essentially, this book was useful to me as a sort of place to gather all my notes--notes I didn't even have to write.  Not that I don't have a whole three-subject notebook of them anyway, as well as many journals and emails to myself.

A criticism would be that this book mostly cites just two others, one of which--Michael Bell's FOOD FOR THE DEAD--is vastly superior.  This one gives just the facts, ma'am, while Bell's gives that, and extensive first-person investigation, more thorough research, and even some slightly comical interviews.  Unless you're writing a novel--or trilogy, or whatever--about this sort of thing, and you only want one book, get Bell's.  But if you have the coin, spring for this one, too.  It's thinner and different and not as well-written or extensive as Bell's, but I think it useful, anyway.  Particularly good were the Introduction, the history of TB, and the description of "Life, Death and Superstition in Early New England," especially for my work.

Check out The Keep near Mercy Brown's grave, but do so at dusk, on a cold February day, like I did--and heed all due respect at this and other such places.  The crypt (or The Keep, as it's called) is really, really, creepy, even more so than the stories, or graves, or anything else.  D'Agostino's book has pics of inside of it, which are invaluable for my work because you can't get inside The Keep anymore--it's bolted shut.

Three I've Recently Finished for My WIP

Photo: Cover of The War of Art, from Pressfield's own site--http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Brilliant and succinct meditation on the artist, the artist's calling, the philosophy of being a writer, and it does all of these things in ways that I would never have thought imaginable.  Some very memorable things in here, such as the fact that Krishna says that we all have the right to our labor, but not to the fruits of our labor.  (This means that we, as writers, have the right to work on our art--in fact, he says, we have the obligation to work on our art--but that we do not have the right to dictate to the gods, to Fate, or whatever, what should happen to our art after we create it.  So you write, and you finish, and you move on.  Brilliant in its simplicity.)  Or that we are all meant, in a Zen-like way, to do one thing in our lives, and that we allow our Ego, and specifically what he calls Resistance, to get in our way.  I'm not much for self-help books (this one, The Secret, and The Road Less Traveled are the only ones to ever do anything for me), but The War of Art is a keeper.  This one book inspired me to get up at 5ish every morning to write before I go to work, and to also work last thing at night before I go to bed.  I'm not creating genius all that time, first thing in the morning and last thing at night, but I am creating something.

Genius.  If you're a writer, buy it.  It'll change you.
Do the Work by Steven Pressfield

A pale addendum to it's predecessor, The War of Art.  The latter I consider to be the Bible of self-help and kick in the butt for writers.  I've recommended it to others (and I recommend it to you); I re-read a portion of it everyday.  This one, not so much.  Sort of cashing in on the respect of the first one, to be honest with you.  Can't hurt to read it, and it's pasted together in such a way that it'll take you less than an hour to read.  But it probably won't help, either.  Nothing new, or of depth, here.

Food for the Dead by Michael E. Bell

Brilliant book, and by a local guy, too.  The backbone of the research I've undertaken for my current WIP.  The style is deceptively simple--or just simple--but the key to it is the matter-of-fact and laid back approach he brings to his interviews and to his dissemination of fact and folklore.  Well summarized, if not a little slapdash with the Stukeley/Tillinghast/Mercy Brown and Nellie Vaughn parts.  Some facts come at you circuitous, but it's a good read, anyway, especially if you live where I do.