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OBSESSIONS FROM SPOTSYLVANIA TO TRANSYLVANIA AND BEYOND Writer sinks teeth into Dracula lore

October 28, 2007 12:36 am

By his own admission, Paul Bibeau wasn't entirely honest with his bride about their honeymoon destination.

They had agreed that during their tour of Europe, they'd honor Bibeau's dual loves of history and vampire lore and visit Dracula's castle in Romania.

Anne likely envisioned a well-preserved gothic monument in Transylvania, perhaps sporting a gift shop.

What she got was a pile of ancient bricks atop a hill reachable only by scaling a crumbling, twisted spine of 1,500 steps.

No gift shop. Not even so much as a restroom.

Exhausted after the hike to what was left of Poenari Castle, Bibeau glanced at his wife and wondered if his obsession had cost him his marriage.

"I knew we'd be in therapy years from now, and she'd use this to justify a string of affairs," he writes in his book "Sundays With Vlad."

"I knew the therapist would look at me and shrug, and I wouldn't say anything."

Amazingly, eight years later, the couple, who recently moved from Spotsylvania County to Virginia Beach, are still together--a testament to either her good humor or his ability to make it up to her.

Also alive and well is Bibeau's passion for all things Dracula, whether it be the 15th-century Romanian prince who once occupied that pile of bricks or the billion-dollar "plastic empire" built on pure vampire legend.

His book, published Oct. 2, is a humorous romp through the shock and schlock associated with the vampire industry.

"The point of the book is that the sort of world surrounding Dracula was almost more compelling than Dracula," Bibeau, 37, said in a telephone interview. "Dracula was like the grain of sand in the oyster that becomes the pearl."

Bibeau traces his fascination with vampires back to a childhood prank involving his older sister and a pair of glow-in-the-dark fangs.

But he says Dracula became a full-blown passion in June 1977 when he watched an episode of Leonard Nimoy's "In Search of "

The program, which investigated everything from UFOs to Big Foot, suggested Irish author Bram Stoker may have based his famous character on an actual vampire.

"It really was this idea that was fascinating to me," Bibeau said, "that there was a real Dracula. I'm fascinated by getting as close as possible to the legend and seeing what's really there."

Hence, a honeymoon to a heap of Romanian bricks.

(In Bibeau's defense, he and his wife also traveled to Vienna, where the gift shops are plentiful.)

But what struck Bibeau in Romania was the country's inability--or perhaps sheer refusal--to capitalize on Dracula's image. Poenari Castle, home to the historic Vlad Dracula, or "Vlad the Impaler," resembled an abandoned brickyard more than a tourist attraction.

Meanwhile, the United States celebrates the fictional Dracula with everything from campy carnival rides and Count Chocula to role-playing conventions and big-screen movies--more than 300 vampire films at last count.

What makes Dracula such an enduring image here?

The "sexy beast" archetype, said Bibeau. Bela Lugosi's performance in Universal Pictures' 1931 film "Dracula" sealed that image of danger combined with sexuality, he said.

"People wanted to emulate that. No one really wanted to emulate Frankenstein's monster," Bibeau said. "No one wants to be a werewolf. And zombies are kind of a downer--got those stiffness issues."

Romanians don't quite view Dracula as the sexy villain made famous in film, literature and Halloween lore. Vlad Dracula, who ruled the region of Wallachia during the 1400s, is actually a national hero, noted for defending his country against Turks and Germans, Bibeau writes.

There's no evidence he ever sucked anyone's blood, though he had a nasty habit of impaling his victims from stem to stern.

Some researchers claim Stoker based his fanged character on the bloody prince. Bibeau is convinced Stoker borrowed only the man's name and probably knew little about him.

Either way, Vlad can hardly claim that his reputation has been sullied.

"It's not like anybody told stories where he was nice and handed out puppies and bunnies," Bibeau said.

Bibeau's research took him from Spotsylvania, where he and his family lived for four years, to Transylvania, land of Dracula, and Pennsylvania, where some of Stoker's notes are on file at Philadelphia's Rosenbach Museum.

He stopped in at the Massaponax Wal-Mart for plastic fangs and at Fredericksburg's Virginia Wine Experience for Transylvanian wine.

He visited a fangsmith in Manhattan, frequented Goth clubs in Richmond, checked out Web sites that urged "safe blood drinking habits" for practicing vampires and followed the case of self-described vampire Jonathon Sharkey, who ran for governor of Minnesota last year.

"I was constantly being entertained," he said. "Dracula combines pop culture, globalization and legal issues--you can go off on a tangent and never come back."