Interview with the Vampire

The Plot

Interview with the Vampire chooses the literary device of the interview - a young chronicler records the story that the self-proclaimed vampire tells him. Set in the present day, it is the story of Louis, spoiled scion of American aristocracy, a rich Southern plantation family. Turned vampire by the charismatic vampire Lestat, Louis and Lestat are partners in crime, but hardly soul mates. Lestat needs Louis for his wealth, and his companionship, but Louis only needs Lestat for what he can learn of his vampire nature.

Louis is the original 'vampire with a soul', who feeds but not to slay, mocked by Lestat for his wishy-washy ways. To keep Louis from straying too far off the reservation, Lestat makes another vampire, the young girl Claudia whom Louis briefly fed from. Claudia and Louis form a family of sorts, and as time goes on, she grows mentally but is physically forever the age she was at her death/conversion.

Eventually they break free from the domination of the more powerful character Lestat and seek their own future.

Themes and Textures

Religion is a perennial theme in Interview with the Vampire and Louis' Catholicism is sorely tried by his conversion. What does a vampire have to do with God, or God with a vampire?

Rice's writing is lush in a moss-draped Southern way. Plantation life and the New Orleans of the eighteenth century are densely realized. This novel, perhaps more than any other one thing, created the 'Goth' movement, fashion and 'lifestyle'.

The interaction between the characters is charged with eroticism (and homoeroticism), even between Louis and the grownup-yet-childsized Claudia. Love and lust are clear motivators for most of the actions they take. That vampires can love was a rather revolutionary concept in '76, although it is rather old-hat now.

The Chronicles

The novel was only the beginning of a many book series featuring characters first introduced here, notably her vampire Lestat, whose backstory we learn in 1985's The Vampire Lestat. The series now stands at a dozen novels. As happens with most successful authors, her publisher over time ceased to provide any useful critiquing of her output, knowing full well that subsequent vampire stories would be best-sellers, and later of her novels suffer according. Lush prose becomes turgid, and overworked themes become tired.

Conversion

In the spring of 2005, Rice moved from her home in New Orleans. Following her own ill health and the death of her husband of many years, she returned to the Catholic Church she left many years ago and renounced the writing of supernatural stories. Her writing abilities, she told reporters, were now in the service of the lord, and in '05 she published the first book in a planned trilogy fictionalizing the life of Jesus, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt.

Although it is true that her vampire series was a little overworked, it's unfortunate that she ceased writing the series when she did - the curious reader would love to know how Lestat managed to survive Hurricane Katrina.