The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova

Overview
The book is presented as an unnamed first-person account written in the year 2008. Ms. Kostova's explanation of the nameless narrator is a "literary experiment." The narrator is a historian whose father, Paul, unwittingly ended up searching for the vampiric Vlad Ţepeş. Although the narrator's adventures take place in 1972, there are three distinct storylines narrated at once:
The narrator's actions in 1972 when she, at the age of sixteen, traveled through France with an undergraduate from Oxford, Stephen Barley.
Paul's travels during the 1950s, when as a graduate student he traveled (initially) to Istanbul in search of his kidnapped professor, Bartholomew Rossi.
Bartholomew Rossi's own travels in Eastern Europe during 1930.
Much of the story is told through letters, excerpts from books and academic literature, and above all, the narrator's reconstructions of stories told to her by her father. Details of the plot and of Dracula's nature, motives, and history are slowly revealed
The book has numerous settings all across Europe, which are complicated by Cold War tensions after World War II, when much of the action occurs.

Product Details
ISBN: 0316011770
Author: Kostova, Elizabeth
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Subject: General
Subject: Fantasy - Dark/Horror
Copyright: 2005
Edition Number: 1st
Publication Date: June 14, 2005
Binding: Hardcover
Language: English
Pages: 656
Dimensions: 9.50x6.38x1.96 in. 2.02 lbs.