Reviewed by Joseph Ball
Frank Merryfellow’s debut novella, Nancy and the Count: Vampire’s Gold, is a historical fiction account of modern Myanmar right up to the present. With the notable twist of vampires – predictably aligned with the junta in Myanmar – permeating the pages, stalking our heroine. But despite the prevalence of these blood-thirsty creatures, the story of Myanmar and the author’s convictions and hopes for the country dominate the narrative.
Nancy herself is a bright university student from one of Myanmar’s many ethnic minority groups, who dropped out of school to join the revolution against the oppression of the military junta. After suffering a severe wound, she settles in “Thailand – the kingdom which had offered them (a reference to Nancy and her husband) each a kind of shelter for a while, after the terror in Burma.” Today, the kingdom is home to hundreds of thousands of Burmese refugees.
Nancy eventually finds her way to Britain, itself sharing a portion of the blame for the tragedy of modern Myanmar through its colonial legacy. Vampires themselves are said to have bled “Burma dry for decades. Timber trade, slaving – all the delights of empire.” From London, Nancy frequents her church – another clear line separating Nancy from the Buddhist Burman majority in Myanmar – while raising money to send to the rebels back in Myanmar.
The text of Nancy and the Count is replete with thinly veiled references to both fact and fiction. The present incarnation of the ruling junta is said to have originated with a coup instigated by Dim Aung Hlaing, the author clearly having fun with the caricature of Min Aung Hlaing. Meanwhile, Nancy is supported in her vampire slaying and quest to find a missing stash of gold and treasure dating back to the end of World War II by none other than a Dr. Van Helsing, straight from the pages of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Having beaten the vampire Count Cornich and his Myanmar military junta allies to the gold, the Karen National Union (KNU) spends the $50 million treasure on the purchase of ground-to-air missiles and plenty of drones – a clear reference to the needs of today’s resistance to counter the air supremacy of the junta in the current conflict. The swarms of drones effectively deployed in the recent Operation 1027 offensive are testament to the clairvoyance of Nancy’s friends in the KNU.
A clear strength of Merryfellow’s narrative is how he employs a fictional tale to provide his own insights into and predictions for the trajectory of today’s conflict in Myanmar as well as global issues of assessed paramount importance.
“Around the world, aid money was tightening up as temperatures, sea levels and crises escalated. With London flooding and much of the US burning, Kevin thought there was less than a decade left in the aid business,” pens Merryfellow, the looming behemoth of climate change an issue clearly dear to the heart of the author.
“Not many votes left in foreign aid when Western economies are nose-diving,” continues the author, “It’s only a matter of time until populists in the White House and Downing Street pull the plug. That said, Myanmar was a partial exception – for now. ‘The Americans like keeping tabs on China. Useful to have some friends in Burma’.”
Looking at the current standoff between the junta and the “Poorly trained and mostly lightly armed, but hugely committed and brave” young people “paying with their lives to hold back – and in some places, push back – the tide of violence,” Nancy and Count relates the overthrow of the instigator of the coup, Dim Aung Hlaing. Could a similar scenario be in store for the real-life junta leader Min Aung Hlaing? In the novella he is replaced by the brilliantly christened Council for Restoration of Administrative Procedures. The acronym of which can do nothing other than elicit a chuckle.
In addition to the insights regarding the current conflict in Myanmar, for those who have spent time in London, Thailand, and/or Myanmar the images painted on the pages of Nancy and the Count are unmistakable and offer some tangibility to a narrative intertwined with the world of vampires.
An alcove in the British Museum is depicted as how a “cubbyhole looked like in a Burmese civil service office.” For those who have ever spent any time in a Burmese civil service office, this imagery conjures up an unmistakable mental impression. The yellowing stacks of paper tied loosely by twine piled from the floor to the ceiling. Meanwhile, the leaders of the Federal Democracy Alliance are busy writing a constitution. How many constitutions for Myanmar have been written over the decades? It always feels as though someone, usually multiple groups, are busy drafting a constitution. And I often find myself asking to what end?
There is even a scene of a raid by Thai authorities on a gathering of largely undocumented Burmese refugees in a house in a Thai-Myanmar border town. It is such allegories that this reviewer found most personal and reflective. Images of the crowded holding area of the police station in Mae Sot, Thailand, quickly sprang to mind. Burmese refugees squatting patiently on the pavement. Other readers of Nancy and the Vampire may be more drawn to how vampire lore and legend are woven throughout the text.
Spoiler alert: the Count lives on. Nancy’s travails are still to continue. Of course, the question so many are asking today is, will the Myanmar military junta live on? How much longer are the travails of the resistance and the people of Myanmar to continue?
Nancy and the Count: Vampires’ Gold by Frank Merryfellow is published by Frogmort Press (2023).
