Kiersten White Seeks Justice for One of Literature’s Most Underserved Characters in Lucy Undying

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that Bram Stoker’s Dracula does Lucy Westenra dirty. The best friend of heroine Mina Harker, Lucy serves as little more than a cautionary tale about the dangers of female sexuality and frivolity, forced to die not once but twice and cast as a ditzy, flirty foil to Mina’s prim propriety. It’s not an accident that such a character would attract the attention of an author like Kiersten White, who has proven herself to be adept at putting a female-focused spin on stories from history and literature and allowing the underserved women in them to shine. And with her latest book, Lucy Undying, she turns her focus on Stoker’s badly done-by heroine, giving her a rich and layered story of her own.

White is no stranger to feminist retellings. From The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, which tells the story of Mary Shelley’s classic from the perspective of Victor Frankenstein’s wife to her Camelot Rising trilogy, which reimagines the world of King Arthur through the eyes of a changeling Guinevere who has magic and agency of her own, she’s long had an interest in the sort of female characters whose voices their own narratives often seem to forget. Lucy Undying is no different, and its rich exploration of Lucy’s story grants her an interiority and purpose that will satisfy any reader who ever wanted more for this character. 

We had the chance to chat with White herself about why she wanted to write a story about Lucy Westenra, keeping track of the many moving pieces of Lucy Undying, and why it felt important to give her heroine a girlfriend at last. 

Paste Magazine: You’ve written a sort of Dracula-adjacent novel before, with your Conqueror’s Saga—what inspired you to take on the Stoker story directly with Lucy Undying?

Kiersten White: The Conqueror’s Saga was based on actual events around the life of Vlad the Impaler, also known as Vlad Dracula. But it was Dracula the novel that introduced me to Dracula the person. I was so fascinated by the history that I started researching it and never stopped. 

Writing Lada Dracul started me on a path of exploring all the ways in which female characters can be powerful, which eventually led to Lucy. She’s rendered so helpless and powerless in Dracula. I couldn’t stand it anymore and needed to write a new story for her.

Paste: What makes Lucy Westenra as a character still so fascinating for readers after all this time? Is it just that so many people from Stoker himself on down through the various adaptations of his story have done her dirty?

White: I definitely think the injustice is part of it. Lucy’s treatment in Dracula isn’t just victimization—it’s brutal, prolonged punishment for merely existing as a sweet, charming, desirable girl. She’s failed by every single person in her life, from her mother to her best friend to the men who profess to love her. Her absolute lack of agency and power devastatingly results in her death…twice. (It’s a vampire novel, after all.)

The worst part for me isn’t even Dracula’s repeated attacks. It’s the fact that the men who assign themselves as Lucy’s protectors are everything from criminally inept to actively abusive. They drug her and perform medical procedures without her knowledge or consent. They withhold information from each other and from her that could potentially have saved her life. And in the end, when she’s no longer a beautiful vessel they can project their own desires onto, they deem her a monster and cut off her head. Only when she is dead at last do they declare her “their” Lucy once more.

We remember Lucy because the tragedy of her death was so stupidly, maddeningly avoidable.

Paste: The three-pronged nonlinear timeline of much of Lucy Undying is so interesting to me—I don’t think the big twist of her involvement in the Iris section is a big surprise, and that honestly feels really purposeful—what made you want to tell it this way instead of a more straightforward recounting of Lucy’s life/afterlife?

White: Part of the nonlinear timeline was homage to the original. Stoker’s tale is not only epistolary—told in a collection of various letters, transcriptions, newspaper articles, and journal entries—but it also jumps around in time. I love a good puzzle of a book. And I don’t think that twists necessarily have to be surprises to the reader. It’s just as delicious when you see what’s coming but the characters don’t, and Stoker was so good at that.

The other part was wanting to spend time with every version of Lucy informing who she is now. That meant teenage Lucy pre-transformation, vampire-through-the-decades Lucy, and Lucy in the modern day. And Iris, the heiress of a sinister fortune with a connection to the original Dracula crew, was my way of helping the reader really see and fall in love with Lucy.

I’ve had questions about why I chose to set so much of the book in the modern day, but that was deliberate, too. Dracula was a very modern novel when it came out, engaging with current events and ideas that were popular when Stoker was writing it. Part of why vampires never go out of fashion is because their metaphors are so adaptable to every single era.

Paste Magazine: How did you keep all the moving pieces straight when you were determining how to tell this story and what to reveal when?

White: You should see my spreadsheets, ha! So many lists of every single chapter, the point of view, when it takes place, and what happens in it.

While drafting, I wrote each timeline separately leading up to a big reveal around the midpoint, and then I stitched them all together to make sure the beats hit where they were supposed to. After that point, I wrote everything linearly. But structurally Lucy Undying is my most complex novel ever, and nearly every revision pass I did was whittling down and streamlining to make it easy to read, thrilling, and focused on the heart of the story: Lucy.

Paste: I love the acknowledgment of the queer undertones in Lucy and Mina’s relationship (And I also love that in your version of things…Mina kind of sucks?). Talk to me a little bit about why you thought it was important to acknowledge that aspect of Lucy’s character?

White: One of the funniest parts of Dracula is when Lucy’s writing to her dear friend Mina about the day three men proposed to her in rapid succession. But the funniest—and most telling part, to me—is that the proposal she actually accepted is only mentioned as a post-script. Like, “Oh ps yeah I guess I love Arthur, I said yes to him, I’m too tired to go into it.” That doesn’t sound like a nineteen-year-old girl embarking on a future she’s excited about. I got married at nineteen and believe me when I tell you I would not shut up about my partner. Being in love was basically my entire personality.

Combining that with the fact that Arthur is barely ever there once they get engaged, and that Lucy seems far more motivated to spend time with Mina—including mentions of when they used to kiss each other—and I just couldn’t read her as straight. Suddenly her outrageous charm, her flirtatious nature, and her ability to appear to be whatever anyone wanted her to be (such that not one but three men thought they had a shot at marrying her) all made sense. Lucy was closeted, lacking even the terminology to understand herself, and became a chameleon as a survival mechanism.

I’ve always said I was going to write a Justice for Lucy Westenra book, and part of that, for me, was giving her a girlfriend at last.

Paste: Speaking of Mina, I loved the twist you put on this character and her motivations. Her darker side here, if you want to call it that, gives her a deliberateness and a genuine agency I don’t think she always has in the original, even if both are pretty ugly things in practice. Where did that come from, for you?

White: I think a lot about the nature of powerlessness. It can turn people calculating and sly and selfish out of necessity. Or it can help them understand that the world is a hard, impossible place, so what more can we do than love and try to be loved? I liked approaching both sides of that through Mina and Lucy. I don’t necessarily blame Mina for how she moves through the world, and I wish I could be more like Lucy.

But what informed Mina’s portrayal most for me was that when Lucy is gradually, painfully dying and then killed? Mina isn’t there at all. She doesn’t so much as come to the funeral. Mina was Lucy’s closest friend and dearest love, then just disappeared once she had her own life to build as Mrs. Harker. It’s devastatingly cold. And after Lucy’s death, as Mina is helping the men and dealing with her own encounters with Dracula, there’s very little sense of mourning.

I suspect that, in reality, it was Stoker neglecting the power and importance of female friendship. But in terms of character, it really defined Mina for me. When she had something to gain from Lucy, she was Lucy’s best friend. And when her interests were elsewhere, Lucy’s existence ceased to matter.

Paste: One of my favorite things in this story is the cast of supporting vampire characters that Lucy meets throughout her life. (I would 10000% read a story about The Lover just stalking serial killers across time and continents!). Where did the inspiration for figures like the Queen or the Doctor come from? Are they based on any characters or archetypes from other stories?

White: I was really interested in the nature of vampires in Dracula. Dracula seems to be the only one with power and agency. It’s clear he can and does regularly make other vampires, but the brides all just sort of exist for him. They hang out in his castle, they obey him, and they get left behind when he decides to hunt on new shores.

I wanted to know about other brides out there. The ones who didn’t follow him. The ones who were shaped by the trauma they carried over the divide between life and death. Would it make them desperate to feel anything, like the Lover? Would it make them bent on control and power, like the Queen? Would it make them a perpetual observer and scientist of the humanity they’d lost, like the Doctor?

These three characters allowed me to stay within the bounds of the vampire lore Stoker wrote, but make it more specific to the individuals, and therefore more interesting.

Paste: Are there other underserved women in classic genre fiction you’d like to take a similar crack at reinterpreting? (I would, as much as I dislike her, read this Mina’s story, honestly.)

White: I love Mina, too! I adore a clever woman making her way through the world however she can. And I liked giving Mina more to do than merely playing secretary to a bunch of would-be vampire hunters.

As far as retellings and reinterpretations, I’ve already tackled Victor Frankenstein’s doomed bride Elizabeth, Queen Guinevere, and now Lucy Westenra. I don’t have my eye on anyone at the moment…but Shakespeare has been whispering to me for a while. His characters definitely benefit from the nuance and complexity of the women who play the roles, though.

Most of my retellings start with a love of the source material but also anger at its treatment of certain characters, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see who makes me mad next!

Paste: What are you working on right now? Anything exciting in the pipeline you can tell us about yet?

White: I’m working on so many things, none of which are at a stage where I can talk about them! I will say if you like the more historical and gothic-tinged aspects of Lucy Undying, you’ll be very pleased with what I have coming for you next. And if you’re a fan of my YA, keep an eye out the next few months for something exciting…

Paste: And, of course, my forever favorite question: What are you reading right now? What our readers should be keeping an eye out for over the next few months?

I have book three of my favorite recent series, the Emily Wilde books by Heather Fawcett. I’m planning a winter gift to myself of re-reading the first books so I can fully sink into this one. 

I’ve also been reading a lot of comics. My current favorite is Something Is Killing the Children. Heartbreaking and visceral and frequently devastating. Out this month, too, is Tiny Threads by Lilliam Rivera. Horror and the fashion industry? Yes, please. 

Lucy Undying is available now wherever books are sold. 

Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB