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Literature / The Last American Vampire

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Did you wonder what happened to Henry Sturges and his end-of-book companion after the events of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter? Seth Grahame-Smith did, and tells the reader about it in the 2015 sequel, The Last American Vampire.

In between events from 1865 to the present day, in which Henry pretty much Forrest Gumps his way through major historical events, he tells the reader about his pre-Lincoln life. Well, the parts he remembers well, anyway. He also has to deal with a Big Bad going under the name "A. Grander VIII", who's working on wiping out the "good guy" vampires like Henry to clear the way for some major manipulations of human events for the benefit of the "bad guy" vampires.


This novel provides examples of the following tropes:

  • Age-Gap Romance: Occurs between Henry and Virginia Dare, as he's at least a good twenty years older than her when they get together. Of course, due to their lifespans, pretty much any romance between a vampire and human ends up being this.
  • Arc Words: "Live". It's the last word Abe's mother spoke to him on her deathbed, and becomes Abe's own last word to Henry when he likewise dies for good. Mark Twain's ruminations of living fully also helps break Henry out of his own funk, and he helps Howard Hughes in his work to find a cure out of a desire to have the semblance of a human - and thus, more fulfilling - life.
  • Armor-Piercing Response: Henry broaches the possibility of making Mark Twain a vampire so he can continue to write for centuries to come, but Twain refuses, telling Henry "A fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time." This shakes Henry out of the decades-long idleness he'd been feeling since Abe's supposed death.
  • Bait-and-Switch: Part of the Whitechapel portion of the story seems to imply that Jack the Ripper is actually Abraham Lincoln, who had survived his transformation into a vampire but had become a crazed murderer looking for revenge against Henry. It instead turns out that the Ripper is Thomas Crowley, the vampire who created Henry.
  • Been There, Shaped History: If Henry's narration is to be believed, he and various associates played significant behind-the-scenes roles in just about every major event from 1865 forward, except for the Titanic. He claims to have killed Jack the Ripper and helped kill Rasputin, as well as being the one who blew up the Hindenburg.
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Many historical characters were really vampires. Besides Abe Lincoln, there's John Wilkes Booth, Rasputin, Jack the Ripper, Virginia Dare, and Howard Hughes. Also, The Untouchables were really Henry and Abe helping Eliot Ness. Humans that associate with vampires include Nikola Tesla, Bram Stoker, Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt (and every subsequent President after him), J. Edgar Hoover, Herbert Hoover, Lee Harvey Oswald, and John D. Rockefeller. Henry speculates that William Shakespeare may have been a vampire, and is rather shocked to discover that Adolf Hitler isn't one.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Henry's bodyguard tells him that, contrary to popular belief, a newborn vampire can survive in the sun.
  • The Chessmaster: The mysterious A. Grander VIII spends centuries on their goal of destabilizing human society, being responsible for manipulating various figures throughout history to achieve their aims. The most notable element is the revelation that nearly every major assassination of a political figure over the past 200+ years was orchestrated by Grander, who chose and trained the assassins responsible, right up to the murder of President John F. Kennedy.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death:
    • Henry inflicts this on John Wilkes Booth after Abe's assassination. At least part of it involved ripping out Booth's spinal column, one vertebrae at a time, while Booth was still alive.
    • Rasputin's famously prolonged death is shown in detail, with Tesla's prototype "Death Ray" (basically a portable microwave emitter) playing the most active part, literally frying Rasputin from the inside. Special mention to Henry also castrating Rasputin with his bare hands during their final struggle.
    • How Henry kills Virginia definitely deserves mention. He stabs both of her eyes out with a scalpel, slits her throat, pulls her tongue through the hole before cutting it off, scalps her and then throws her into a furnace to finish the job (cutting her fingers off in the process by slamming the furnace door on them). Suffice to say, Henry may be a "good" vampire, but if he believes you deserve it, he will make you suffer.
  • Dark Action Girl: Virginia Dare, and how. She manages to savagely assault and kidnap Abraham Lincoln, one of the most skilled and capable vampire hunters on the planet, who, in addition to his previous skills, is also a vampire himself at this point, with all of the strength and speed that comes with it. She easily hands Henry's ass to him in their first showdown, and would have prevailed were it not for the fact they they were on the Hindenburg and Henry just so happened to have a lighter...
    Henry: She was the best fighter I’d ever faced. Ten times more powerful than Rasputin, despite being half his size. She was, to put it mildly, kicking my ass.
  • Darker and Edgier: Although Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was quite dark and violent, this novel one-ups it significantly, featuring much more graphic violence, a surprising amount of swearing, and even a bit of sex. This can be attributed to Henry being the novel's POV character, as he's seen and been involved with a lot over the centuries, compared to Lincoln. He's also shown to be a lot more willing to be vulgar in his narration, as opposed to the very mannered and well-spoken Abe.
  • Dying Race: The number of vampires in the world goes into serious decline following the Civil War. At the time of Henry's meeting with John D. Rockefeller in 1920, the number of vampires in America is estimated at around 300, with around a thousand more worldwide. By the time of his meeting with Howard Hughes in 1953, the number of American vampires was down to less than a hundred (Hughes claimed 93, to be exact).
  • Footnote Fever: Grahame-Smith employs these often, same as the previous novel.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Read Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter? Then you'll know that Lincoln didn't really die in the beginning of this book since in the epilogue of Vampire Hunter he's shown attending MLK's most famous speech.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: How Abe meets his ultimate end, being cut in half by Virginia Dare with his own axe.
  • Historical Domain Character: Most of the characters in the book, even Henry himself (see any list of Roanoke colonists).
  • Humans Are Bastards: When Henry and Abe infiltrate the Nazi rally in an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, they're shocked to realize that he's just an ordinary human and not secretly a vampire like they'd believed. There's no mind-control or other supernatural influence at work in stirring these people into mouth-frothing hatred; they are willingly abandoning any sense of humanity they might have left.
  • I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Henry runs into this not only with his own maker, but with two people he turns. One of Henry's "kids" gets over it; the other, not so much.
    • Henry's antagonism with Virginia Dare actually has nothing to do with him making her a vampire; she asked him to do it. Instead, it's because of their opposing ideologies: Henry wants to protect America, and Virginia wants to destroy it.
  • Immune to Bullets: While it seemed to be the case during Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, here it's explained that ordinary bullets actually CAN kill vampires, you just need to use a LOT of them. It wasn't as much of an issue before and during the Civil War, when firearms were mostly limited to ball-and-powder muskets or single-shot pistols and rifles, but then machine-guns were invented...
  • Killed Off for Real: Abe Lincoln manages to survive being turned, and spends decades working alongside Henry for the U.S. Government, only to finally be killed during their final confrontation with Virginia Dare.
  • The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Henry is a big fan of the theater performances of Henry Irving and the literary works of Mark Twain, and is thrilled to meet both. His meeting with Irving is brief and uneventful, but he strikes up a years-long friendship with Twain.
  • Not Using the "Z" Word: A slight example. While the word "vampire" is thrown around with abandon, Henry in particular has a problem with anyone (human or otherwise) using the word "dead" to describe he or his kind, although whether this is due to his discomfort at the idea of being referred to as a corpse or purely grammatical (because, while vampires aren't alive in the traditional sense, they certainly don't fit the dictionary definition) is unclear.
  • The Older Immortal: In Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Henry mentions that most vampires don't live much past 300 years before becoming bored with life (or unlife). At the time of his death in 1898, Adam Plantagenet, the founder of the vampires' Union, was over 590 years old despite still looking like a teenager. By 2014, Henry is likely one of the oldest ones left, being just over 450 years old.
  • Rasputin the Mad Monk: Henry, along with Nikola Tesla, is sent to assassinate the Mad Monk, who turns out to be a seriously tough vampire himself.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Any vampire character once he/she passes natural human lifespan, of course. This is especially a problem for Alex (born Alexei Romanov), who was turned at about thirteen. He finds it necessary to employ a driver, since it's a nuisance to constantly get pulled over for appearing too young to drive.
  • Secret-Keeper: There are humans nicknamed "Renfields" note  who are employed by vampires as assistants. Apparently, Bram Stoker was one, which is presumably where he got the name.
  • Sequel Hook: The novel ends with Henry, having retired to a life of semi-seclusion, opening his safe after seeing the events of 9/11 to find Alex Romanov's business card, implying that he will go back to work as an agent for the Union.
  • Significant Anagram: After years of parsing the name of the mysterious "A. Grander VIII", Henry is horrified to learn (courtesy of John D. Rockefeller) that it's actually an anagram for Virginia Dare.
  • Sir Swears-a-Lot: William Duell never met a profanity he didn't like, and proceeds to use pretty much all of them during his time in the story. His parting words to Henry are even "Fuck off".
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: William Duell embodies this trope due to his being a vampire who was turned as a sixteen-year-old, and looks a lot younger than that. He states that the only two things he lives for are "feeding and fucking", and claims to have bedded over a thousand women.
  • Turning Back Human: It turns out that this was the real reason that Howard Hughes set up his medical research foundation. It ultimately results in his death, but Henry keeps bankrolling the project for the next five decades in the hope of achieving the same goal.
  • Unwanted Revival:
    • After Abe Lincoln was assassinated, Henry decided to steal his corpse and resurrect him as a vampire. Given how many days Abe had already been dead, Henry wasn't even sure it would work. It did, but Abe was furious about it and almost immediately tried to kill himself by jumping out a window into the sunlight.
    • Howard Hughes was killed in the test flight of one of his planes, but the American government decided he was too valuable a resource, and recruited another vampire to resurrect him the same way Henry resurrected Abe.note  Howard was not happy about this, and spent the next several years extensively studying vampire physiology in an attempt to develop a cure.
  • Vegetarian Vampire: Vampires can survive off animal blood, however it leaves them feeling perpetually run-down, as if suffering a constant case of the flu. Although many vampires are mentioned to do this occasionally, either because human blood is unavailable or to avoid drawing attention to themselves, few choose to do so exclusively. After World War II, Abe has had enough of killing, so he retires to a farm where he raises cattle that he also feeds off of. By the modern day, Henry gets his blood from blood-banks and keeps it stored in his fridge.
  • Wife Husbandry: Henry's second wife, whom he marries decades after his turning, is Virginia Dare, whom he raises after the Roanoke Colony is wiped out. They're two of the three survivors of that event, the third being the one who wiped out the colony and turned Henry. Not that he intended this trope, they simply found they were mutually attracted when she was old enough for a relationship.

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