Bookclub Guide
A Fan's Interview with Anne Rice
Question 1: Jeff Korn asks, What areas of
classical mythology are you most interested in, and how do you go
about incorporating them into a new novel?
Anne Rice:Well, the answer is that I'm fascinated
by almost any mythology that I can get my hands on, but I guess
Greek and Roman mythology really enchants me. And I don't know that
I've consciously incorporated mythology into my novels--I did
explore very deeply Egyptian lore when I created the characters of
Akasha and Akeel, the eldest of the vampires. But I'm usually
working on my own mythology, my own realm of created characters.
But again, I'm in love with all sorts of mythology, and obviously
stories in mythology inspire my though I may not be conscious of
it.
Question 2: David Melinkoff asks, What literary
works do you believe most influenced your novels?
Anne Rice: That is a very difficult question to
answer, because I read so widely and so much--even for a
non-reader. I think the Brontë sisters--Wuthering Heights and Jane
Eyre, two books that I read before I ever wrote Interview with the
Vampire--I think they had a terrific influence on me. I recently
reread both of those books and I loved them, and I think they
continue to have an influence on me. I am in love with Emily
Brontë's Heathcliff--I absolutely adore him. But I did a lot of
reading when I was in college. I read Virginia Woolf, and
Hemingway, and Shakespeare, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock
Holmes stories, and I read some very pure horror fiction from
England that I really loved--in particular, J. Sheridan LeFanu's
Carmilla, a vampire story that was written in the 1870s and is a
very wonderfully sensuous vampire story. I think it's influenced
many movies. And I also read the stories of Algernon Blackwood, a
very distinguished Englishman--I believe before he died he was
reading ghost stories on BBC radio. And I also read the stories of
M.R. James, a very distinguished English gentleman. And I loved all
that fiction--I absolutely loved it. So everything went into the
mix. I'm definitely more influenced by European writers than I am
by American writers, there's no doubt about that. I lean toward
English writers. And for Merrick the novel that's going to be
published in October of 2000, I read a lot of Conan Doyle to get
the British voice that David needs to tell that story.
Question 3: Steven Wedel asks, Your attitude
toward Christianity seemed pretty dim in your early Vampire books,
almost as if you were saying God doesn't exist. However, in your
more recent books--especially Memnoch the Devil--that view seems to
have changed. Has your outlook on religion changed?
Anne Rice: Well the answer to that is I'm always
looking, and I'm always asking questions. I mean, if you go all the
way back to Interview with the Vampire, which was published in
1976, the vampires are really talking a lot about God and the
Devil. Louis's quest--my tragic hero Louis--his quest is to find
the oldest vampire in the world, and to find out if that vampire
knows anything about God and the Devil. The answer was, of course,
rather tragic in Interview with the Vampire, but I go on asking, I
go on seeking answers. Now in Memnoch the Devil, which happens by
the way to be my favorite of all The Vampire Chronicles, we don't
know really whether Memnoch told the truth to Lestat or not--it's
left as a mystery, and that's very deliberate. I'm going to keep on
asking these questions, I'm going to keep on dealing with the
supernatural in a lot of ways, and I can't get very far away from
Christianity, I can't get very far away from the angels and the
saints. I work them in always, in some way. In Merrick, Merrick's
voodoo incorporates Catholic saints and statues of the virgin--it's
in my blood, all of this, and there's no pun intended there.
Question 4: Christina Canali asks, After hearing
of the time you were transported in a coffin in a horse-drawn
carriage across New Orleans, I was wondering what plans, in any,
you might have for your own funeral when your time comes. I'm
fascinated to know!
Anne Rice: Well, my own funeral! All I know is
that I'd like to be laid out in a coffin in my own house, right
here where I live. I would like my coffin to be put in the double
parlor, and I would like all the flowers that are brought to the
funeral to be white. And that's about it. If I could then be
transported to the nearby cemetery, Lafayette #1, that would be
wonderful--that's the cemetery where all my fictional Mayfairs are
buried, but I don't actually own a plot or a grave in Lafayette #1,
so I don't know how far that hearse is going to have to carry me.
It may be to someplace out in the suburbs--the rest is unknown. Of
course I would want the most joyous music at my funeral--I'd love
people to sing a hymn called "I Am the Bread of Life", but after
that hymn is sung, then it can be Dixieland bands, all the way. And
merriment. And lots of wine served, certainly.
Question 5: P. Wayne Hill asks, With all the
talent in your family--your husband being an artist and poet, your
son a published novelist--is living in your house different from
any other American household? Do the three of you ever sit around
and share ideas? I would love to be at the dinner table with the
three of you and listen to the conversation.
Anne Rice: You know, I don't know if our
conversation is all that exciting. We do talk about what we are
doing to each other. We do, I don't know--kind of report to each
other what we're doing. And at this point of course I am so proud
of my son Christopher. I am so proud of his novel A Density of
Souls--I thought it was really, absolutely wonderful. If I didn't
think it was wonderful I just wouldn't mention it, so I can assure
you I'm telling the truth. I was just blown away that he could
write something at the age of twenty-one that was so intense and so
good. But many times our conversation is just about family matters,
just trivial things: where are we going to go out to dinner? What's
the food like? When are we going to have a family reunion? What's
going on with my mother-in-law? What's happening with our cousins?
It can be very mundane, very ordinary.
Question 6: Kathy asks: How does the beautiful
artwork for your book covers come about? Are you involved in
choosing them?
Anne Rice: Well, it's a pleasure to answer this
question. The artwork on the book covers is chosen by my editor
Victoria Wilson. Victoria Wilson has been my editor for twenty-five
years. She has a knack for coming up with absolutely beautiful
artwork. She just has a real intuition where that's concerned. She
finds exactly the right thing. I think that the readers of the
books very much appreciate the artwork that she chooses. I've loved
it.
I've been excited about every cover that Victoria has ever created.
And I'm very glad that I'm at a publishing house that allows
Victoria to have a free hand with that and to choose what she
thinks is good.
Question 7: Julie Schronk asks: I've read: Rice
fans identify with the Vampires because we feel like outsiders. Do
you see yourself as an outsider after all these years of your
writing and your fantastic success?
Anne Rice: First of all, thank you for referring
to my success as fantastic. Yes, I feel like an outsider, and I
always will feel like one. I've always felt that I wasn't a member
of any particular group. And I think that writers in particular as
they gain success feel like outsiders because writers don't come
together in real groups. You can look at the New York Times
Bestseller List and you can be pretty sure that the writers on that
list don't know each other very well. Maybe two or three know each
other, but it isn't like we all go to a party every weekend and we
talk about our experience as best selling authors. That doesn't
happen. I also think that process by which you become a writer is a
pretty lonely one. We don't have a group apprenticeship like a
violinist might training for an orchestra, or a ballet student
might being in a company that does ballets. We don't have any of
that. We write on our own time, we write when we can. There may be
writing groups where people meet but its occasional. You really do
it all at your own computer or your own typewriter by yourself.
Question 8: Sari Philipps asks: Thank you for all
your wonderful stories. Do you personally visit the places you
write about, such as Brazil or England or Paris? Or do you just
extensively research. I love reading about all the places visited
by the Vampires and Witches in your books, every location just
seems so alive and I feel like I'm really there too.
Anne Rice: I do visit most of the places that I
write about. I have been to Brazil and I have been not only in Rio
de Janeiro but also in the Amazon, and I really loved it. I wrote
about it with great passion afterward in the book Violin. And I
have been to England and to Paris. I love both places. In England I
went to Glastonbury and I visited the supposed tomb of King Arthur.
I also went to Canterbury because I wanted to see the cathedral
there. I went to Stonehenge of course. I wish I had spent more time
in England. I really do. I've been to Paris more than once, I'm not
sure if it's three times or twice. The Paris that I describe in my
books is something of course that I have to envision because it is
the Paris of the eighteenth century, but when Lestat goes to Paris
now, and he sees things, those are the things that I saw. Some of
the places I've written about I have not been. I have not been to
India yet, and I hope to go to India, I want very much to do it,
and so there's some research involved when I describe those places.
In Merrick, for example, I describe the Guatemalan jungle. I
haven't been there. But as I've said, I've been to the Amazon and
I've been to the rainforest in the middle of the city of Rio, and
that prepared me very much I think to write about that Safari in
Merrick. By the way, I hope that safari was a lot of fun for
readers. It was fun for me.
Question 9: Deborah asks: What is the most
difficult novel you have had to write to date?
Anne Rice: The most difficult novel I have had to
write in terms of just getting it done was The Vampire Lestat.
That's the second one in the Chronicles. It took a year to write. I
had a very difficult time with it. Right up to a little over
halfway through. Then, when the character of Marius entered the
novel, I wrote the last 300 pages in eleven days. So I really felt
terrific about that. But that novel was very hard. Now, there's
another way of looking at this question. The most painful novel for
me to write was probably the novel Violin, which involved a ghost
named Stefan and a heroine named Triana. And was about the
supernatural and also about music. All of the novels involve some
kind of pain and some kind of special difficulty. But I think those
were the two most difficult.
Question 10: Mary Arnold asks: The atmosphere and
history of wonderful New Orleans imbues your work and setting. It
feels so essential to the story of the Mayfair witches. Do you feel
any of it could unfold in any other location?
Anne Rice: Well, I am not sure. The Mayfair
witches really were born to be in New Orleans. And I do love New
Orleans with my whole soul. And I wrote The Witching Hour, Lasher,
and Taltos, the three novels in that trilogy right in the house in
New Orleans. It's in this house that the Mayfair witches live. This
house on Chestnut and First Street is the home of the Mayfair
witches, and people know that. And I don't mind people knowing that
at all. This house is a character in the novel. The setting of
Merrick had to be New Orleans, and I feel that Merrick is a very
special New Orleans character.