Even with the current frenzy for supernatural literature, no one could have predicted that last year’s biggest literary hit would have been Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen’s classic romantic comedy reanimated to include mass quantities of ultraviolent zombie mayhem. For his latest book, Zombies co-author Seth Grahame-Smith turns to biography with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which reveals that Abraham Lincoln had more in common with Buffy Summers than with George Washington.

Your latest book focuses on a famous figure in American history rather than another classic novel. What drew you to writing a biographical book?
I love biographies and histories, and the majority of what I read for pleasure falls into those categories. David McCullough, Walter Isaacson, Doris Kearns Goodwin—these are writers I worship (along with Stephen King and the like, of course). They have the ability to take facts and dates and turn them into rich, page-turning narratives. That’s a skill I admire, and it’s something I wanted to attempt—only in a slightly more absurd way.

Why Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter? Why not, say, George Washington, Undead Slayer?
I love to hang out in book stores—pulling new novels off the shelf and reading a few pages here and there, observing what’s on the front tables, what people are reading, and so on. About two years ago, as we were leading up to the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, it seemed like a new Lincoln biography was being released every week. This was also around the time that the Twilight books were beginning to blow up. Every book store I walked into, there they were: a bunch of new Lincoln books and a bunch of new vampire books. It was what I call a “chocolate and peanut butter” moment: What if these two great tastes taste even better together?

How was writing this book different from writing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? Was there a lot more research involved?
Writing this book was much, much more time-consuming and research intensive. With PPZ, there was really only one piece of source material. The challenge was to weave the zombie subplot in as seamlessly as possible and mimic the style of Jane Austen’s writing as closely as possible.  Here, I wanted as many real facts, figures and dates as I could squeeze in—and that required gathering a ton of information about Lincoln’s actual life. All of the vampire elements had to be created wholesale, and I had to mimic the writing and speaking style of one of the most brilliant men who has ever lived.

In the introduction, you relay the story of the vampire Henry giving you Lincoln’s lost journals, which become the basis for the book. Why did you choose to have the journals “given” to you verses, say, just stumbling upon them?
Two reasons: One, I was in Rhinebeck, NY when I first started working on the outline for ALVH. My wife’s family has a five and dime there (it’s called A.L. Stickle, but the locals call it “Stickle’s”), and I really wanted to feature it in the book since, like Henry, the store is a small part of a dying past—one of the last of its kind.  Plus, I know the store inside and out, so describing it in the book came easy.  The second reason is because having the journals given to me seemed more logical. There are a million Lincoln scholars out there, all of them researching every detail of his life. If the journals were just sitting out there, waiting to be discovered, why me? Why not a real Lincolnphile?

Early in the book, Lincoln meets Edgar Allan Poe. What inspired you to have them meet? Do you know if they met in real life?
To my knowledge, they never actually met. But Lincoln had a macabre streak as we know, and he was a fan of Poe’s work.  He actually dabbled in writing gothic poetry himself. Knowing this, and knowing that they were almost exactly the same age (though Poe died well before Lincoln), it seemed like a fun pairing of personalities.

You played a bit with the conventions of vampirism in your book. For example, your vampires can come out in the sunlight without burning—and thank you for not making them sparkle. How did you decide what aspects of traditional vampirism to keep or not keep?
It came down to what worked for the story. I didn’t want Henry to be confined to darkness (at least not in a literal sense).  I wanted vampires to be present at the great battles of the Civil War.  I wanted them there at Abe’s inaugurations. To do that, they needed to be sunlight-friendly (in the book, it takes them a century or so of gradual exposure to become immune to the effects of sunlight— the noobs still burn up if they go out in daylight). As for the all-black eyes, superhuman strength, mind-reading, and glassy fangs? Those were inspired by other vampire stories (i.e. I ripped them off).

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was a surprise hit last year, leading a pack of classic novels being combined with classic horror creatures. Now your book’s being made into a movie, and another author is writing a prequel to your work. Did you ever imagine that this book—or even this genre—would take off as it has?
Not even slightly. Not me, not the publisher—not anybody. When PPZ was about to come out, I was sweating bullets hoping it would sell enough to break even.  There were no discussions of “hey—we’re going to sell a million books,” or “hey, we’re creating a new genre,” or “hey, do you think Natalie Portman and David O. Russell would want to team up and make this into a movie?”

What do you suppose is the appeal of reading about the Bennet family fighting zombies or Abraham Lincoln slaying vampires?
I’m not entirely sure. Part of it is our collective familiarity with the original stories. Part of it (maybe most of it) is the absurdity of the premises. I hope that part of it is the execution—the books delivering on the promises their titles make in an entertaining way. Some of it is probably the newness of the genre.

Pride and Prejudice is traditionally read and cherished by women. What sort of reactions do you get from male readers of the book? Anything surprising?
I’ve been surprised by how many male readers have given the book a shot.  The majority of PPZ fans are women, but a lot of men have claimed that after reading PPZ, they’re interested in reading other (non-zombiefied) Jane Austen books. That absolutely blows the top of my skull off.  

What’s your next project? Are readers going to get any more of your twists on the classics?
I’m just starting to outline my next book. It’ll deal in the supernatural, and it’ll be plenty bloody, but it won’t be a mash-up.

(March, 2010)