Lasher - Hardcover

Rice, Anne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679412956 ISBN 13: 9780679412953

Publisher: Knopf, 1993

Synopsis

From the day her first Vampire Chronicle was published, critics and readers--readers by the hundreds of thousands--have been mesmerized by the writings of Anne Rice.  And with the publication of The Witching Hour, she created for us yet another world and legend, and both the chorus of praise and the multitudes of her readers once more increased.

Now, Anne Rice brings us again--even more magically--into the midst of the dynasty of witches she introduced in The Witching Hour.

At the center:  the brilliant an beautiful Rowan Mayfair, queen of the coven, and Lasher, the darkly compelling demon whom she finds irresistible and from whose evil spell and vision she must now flee.  She takes with her their terrifying and exquisite child, one of "a brood of children born knowing, able to stand and talk on the first day."

Rowan's attempt to escape Lasher and his pursuit of her and their child are at the heart of this extraordinary saga.  It is a novel that moves around the globe, backward and forward through time, and between the human and demonic worlds.  Its many voices--of women, of men, of demons and angels, present and past--haunt and enchant us.  With a dreamlike power, the novel draws us through twilight paths, telling a chillingly hypnotic story of occult and spiritual aspirations and passion.

About this title

About the Author

Anne Rice is the author of thirty-two books. She lives in Palm Desert, California.

From the Inside Flap

her first Vampire Chronicle was published, critics and readers--readers by the hundreds of thousands--have been mesmerized by the writings of Anne Rice. And with the publication of The Witching Hour, she created for us yet another world and legend, and both the chorus of praise and the multitudes of her readers once more increased.

Now, Anne Rice brings us again--even more magically--into the midst of the dynasty of witches she introduced in The Witching Hour.

At the center: the brilliant an beautiful Rowan Mayfair, queen of the coven, and Lasher, the darkly compelling demon whom she finds irresistible and from whose evil spell and vision she must now flee. She takes with her their terrifying and exquisite child, one of "a brood of children born knowing, able to stand and talk on the first day."

Rowan's attempt to escape Lasher and his pursuit of her and their child are at the heart of this ext

Reviews

Returning to the Mayfair clan she introduced in The Witching Hour , Rice offers another vast, transcontinental saga of witchcraft and demonism in the tradition of Gothic melodrama. The eponymous Lasher is a demon spirit who preys on female Mayfairs in his attempt to procreate. Rowan Mayfair, queen of the coven who has borne Lasher's child, has now disappeared. At times this main narrative is lost as the story moves from the Louisiana Mayfairs to the Scottish Donnelaiths and the clandestine London Telamasca society, with copious personal histories and myriad characters. Long sections ramble without a compelling point of view, and are dampened by stock elements: cliched wind storms, sexy witches, the endless supply of money the Telemasca has at its disposal. At times, Lasher is too much in evidence (rattling the china, gnashing his teeth) to be frightening. But embedded in this antique demonism is a contemporary tale of incest and family abuse that achieves resonance. It is maintained through the character of Lasher, both child and man at the same time, who manipulates his victims with his own pain. At their best, Rice's characters rise above the more wooden plot machinations with an ironic and modern complexity: Mona, the young feminist witch with sharklike business instincts; Julien, the dead patriarch, who movingly recalls his male lovers; Yuri, the clever Serbian orphan. Despite lapses into uninspired language, ultimately the novel is compelling through its exhaustive monumentality. 700,000 first printing; Literary Guild main selection.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The sequel and conclusion to Rice's The Witching Hour (1990) shows Rice both at her best and at her hackiest. Volume One brought forth the Mayfair Witches, an incestuous family in New Orleans' steamy Garden District, headed by supersurgeon Rowan Mayfair, who is putting some of the family's seven-and-a-half billion into the Mayfair Medical Institute. At that novel's end, Rowan had given birth to an ``entity'' on the living-room rug that, assuming human shape, had nearly killed husband Michael in the swimming pool, then abducted Rowan. Now the evil being--which looks like D�rer's Christ and has been using witches in the Mayfair line to have itself reborn after dying time and again since the earliest days of the Reformation in Scotland-- is skipping about Europe while trying to breed with Rowan and give birth to a female demon. But these porny pages don't arrive until we wade through 200 tediously undramatic sheets of dialogue filler quite lacking in storytelling oomph--though we are treated to teenygenius Mona Mayfair's seduction of the recovering Michael. All this is a case of background detail turning story into tapestry. Once Rice plunges us into Rowan's long rape, two miscarriages, and at last the birth of Emaleth, sister/wife for Rowan's demonic son Lasher, the novel lights up with rocket blast. How will Rowan escape her tyrant son, whose endless suckling and inseminating keeps her constantly orgasmic and horrified? But pigging out on Rowan's plight takes up only about 200 pages all told, and then more background filler--well, the novel's huge mythic underpinning- -dims our spirits, although the story of Uncle Julien, as told by Julien's ghost to Michael, dances nicely. Too much Rice-A-Roni, but addicts will lick the pot. (Literary Guild Dual Selection for November; First printing of 700,000) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679412956
• ISBN 13: 9780679412953
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 592