In ‘Shadowplay’ Bram Stoker’s Life Is Even Scarier than His Dracula
Spoiler alert — The imagined life of the man who created the world’s most famous vampire was beset by vampires of his own.
If you’ve ever wondered where Bram Stoker got the idea for Dracula, Irish novelist Joseph O’Connor has an answer likely to stand your hair on end. His 2019 novel Shadowplay is a compelling account of Stoker’s relationship with two of the most celebrated actors of their day — Henry Irving and Ellen Terry — during the time Stoker was writing his vampire novel.
Not only is O’Connor’s Shadowplay impossible to put down, it is word-for-word one of the best written stories I have ever read. It’s often said that Irish writers have a unique gift for language. Indeed, there were times as I read Shadowplay that I wondered if I should call myself a writer at all.
The book’s excellence is of the kind that might have prevented me from ever setting pen to paper in the first place. And although that statement is hyperbole, the exaggeration aptly points to the sense of awe I felt with each sentence.
Creative siblings
If you’ve never heard of Joseph O’Connor, there’s a good chance you know of his younger sister — the singer and…
