The Letters of Mina Harker (Library of American Fiction)
In Dodie Bellamy's imagined "sequel" to Bram Stoker's fin de si cle masterpiece Dracula, Van Helsing's plain Jane secretarial adjunct, Mina Harker, is recast as a sexual, independent woman living in San Francisco in the 1980s. The vampire Mina Harker, who possesses the body of author Dodie Bellamy, confesses the most intimate details of her relationships with four vastly different men through past letters. Simultaneously, a plague is let loose in San Francisco-the plague of AIDS.
Bigger-than-life, half goddess, half Bette Davis, Mina sends letter after letter to friends and co-conspirators, holding her reader captive through a display of illusion and longing. Juggling quivering vulnerability on one hand and gossip on the other, Mina spoofs and consumes and spews back up demented reembodiments of trash media and high theory alike. It's all fodder for her ravenous libido and "a messy ambiguous place where pathology meets pleasure." Sensuous and captivating, The Letters of Mina Harker describes one woman's struggles finding the right words to explain her desires and fears without confining herself to one identity.
Bigger-than-life, half goddess, half Bette Davis, Mina sends letter after letter to friends and co-conspirators, holding her reader captive through a display of illusion and longing. Juggling quivering vulnerability on one hand and gossip on the other, Mina spoofs and consumes and spews back up demented reembodiments of trash media and high theory alike. It's all fodder for her ravenous libido and "a messy ambiguous place where pathology meets pleasure." Sensuous and captivating, The Letters of Mina Harker describes one woman's struggles finding the right words to explain her desires and fears without confining herself to one identity.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0299206742
ISBN13:9780299206741
Release Date:September 2004
Publisher:University of Wisconsin Press
Length:226 Pages
Weight:0.80 lbs.
Dimensions:0.5" x 6.2" x 9.1"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
Undead-- And Back In Print!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 20 years ago
Bellamy's employment of language is intoxicating: her sentences swirling around like smoke in a fat-bellied glass pipe, the body of her work crackling with the brilliance of a heretofore unknown substance. This modern-day vampire tale set in San Francisco pounds a stake in the heart of literary conventions--transcending form and sexual orientation--and sends my blood rushing. _The Letters of Mina Harker_ is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary literature.
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