Will I love The Vampire Lestat?

If there was one criticism I had of Interview With The Vampire, it was that there wasn’t enough Lestat. I can’t have been the only one because when Anne Rice decided to do a sequel, she didn’t keep following Louis, the tortured hero of the first book, but instead told us the story of his Maker.

I love that this book doesn’t try to repeat what the first part did and tell us another story of a vampire at odds with what he is. Lestat embraces the (after)life that is forced upon him. I admire the purity of his acceptance… show more.

I recommend all of Anne Rice’s vampire books. Rice’s vampires are attractive, alluring, but dangerous and deadly. The reader can’t trust what Lestat says, as he will say at one point that he only kills evildoers, or only takes small sips from people and leaves them unharmed. Then he tells stories about his actions which completely contradict what he’s said. There’s something worse than vampires in this book, however. A much older vampire, Marius, has been caring for Those Who Must be Kept. These are precursor vampires, more bloodthirsty and far less civilized than the vampires like Lestat. These creatures… show more.

The novel opens with Lestat waking up after a decades-long sleep, only to be entranced by a rock band. He falls in love with the music and decides to reveal vampire kind to humanity. I fell in love with the idea of a rockstar vampire right away. After reading Interview with the Vampire, I loved how Rice went back and told Lestat's story in his own voice, allowing us to gain a completely new perspective on a character we thought we knew from the first book. This book, more than any other, taught me the importance of characters telling… show more.

How is it possible to empathize with, even love, something that is inherently evil?  Enter Lestat, the vampire. Once an aristocrat in pre-revolutionary France, now a centuries-hopping demon, Lestat is utterly alive, possessing an unquenchable appetite for adventure, all despite being a member of the undead. This book reads like foreplay feels, leaves me giddy, as if my blood is slowly being drained away… (See what I did there?)

I’m writing this on the morning of December 12, 2021, having just heard the news of Anne Rice’s exiting this mortal coil, and it’s safe to say I probably wouldn’t have written Vamped without first reading The Vampire Lestat. What I love about this book is how seriously it takes its subject, the way it luxuriates in the language of viscera and wonder, and the way it explores its motifs beyond easy observations like “vampires are sexy.” In particular, I love how it deals with the weight of immortality and the ability to bestow that gift-curse to others. And… show more.