Interview With The Vampire - Softcover

Rice, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345331974 ISBN 13: 9780345331977

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1985

Synopsis

Interview with the Vampire is a debut gothic horror and vampire novel by American author Anne Rice, published in 1976. Based on a short story Rice wrote around 1968, the novel centers on vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac, who tells the story of his life to a reporter. Rice composed the novel shortly after the death of her young daughter Michelle, who served as an inspiration for the child-vampire character Claudia

About this title

Review

In the now-classic novel Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice refreshed the archetypal vampire myth for a late-20th-century audience. The story is ostensibly a simple one: having suffered a tremendous personal loss, an 18th-century Louisiana plantation owner named Louis Pointe du Lac descends into an alcoholic stupor. At his emotional nadir, he is confronted by Lestat, a charismatic and powerful vampire who chooses Louis to be his fledgling. The two prey on innocents, give their "dark gift" to a young girl, and seek out others of their kind (notably the ancient vampire Armand) in Paris. But a summary of this story bypasses the central attractions of the novel. First and foremost, the method Rice chose to tell her tale--with Louis' first-person confession to a skeptical boy--transformed the vampire from a hideous predator into a highly sympathetic, seductive, and all-too-human figure. Second, by entering the experience of an immortal character, one raised with a deep Catholic faith, Rice was able to explore profound philosophical concerns--the nature of evil, the reality of death, and the limits of human perception--in ways not possible from the perspective of a more finite narrator.

While Rice has continued to investigate history, faith, and philosophy in subsequent Vampire novels (including The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, Memnoch the Devil, and The Vampire Armand), Interview remains a treasured masterpiece. It is that rare work that blends a childlike fascination for the supernatural with a profound vision of the human condition. --Patrick O'Kelley

From the Publisher

It seems amazing to me that I didn't get around to reading this book until years after it had been first published, especially because I'm a big vampire fan. I was working in a bookstore and finally picked it up...and couldn't put it down until I'd finished it. Interview is one of those books that stays with you long after you've read it. I still have moments were something will remind me of it and I'll sit there thinking about a particular scene or character. It was only a few months after reading this, and tearing through the sequel, as well, that I went to work for Ballantine and got the chance to sell Anne Rice's books as well as read them. I guess it was fate.

Lisa Congelosi, Ballantine Sales Rep.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0345331974
• ISBN 13: 9780345331977
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback