In the summer of 1816, Percy and Mary Shelley, Mary's sister, and Lord Byron hid themselves inside a Swiss villa, whiling away rainy afternoons with a Gothic novel writing contest. In Andahazi's reimagining, there was a fifth competitor ... John Polidori, Byron's manservant, a talentless would-be writer resentful of the ease of his master's life. Through a Faustian pact with an unseen intercessant, Polidori obtains the most compelling vampire story ever written, which he will read aloud the night Mary Shelley first unveils Frankenstein.