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.

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