Anne Rice, the gothic novelist best known for her 1976 novel “Interview With the Vampire,” which was adapted into a popular 1994 film starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, passed away on Saturday. She was 80 years old. Christopher Rice, her son, posted on social media that complications from a stroke were the cause.
His post did not indicate where she passed away. When Anne Rice adapted a short story she had written in the late 1960s into “Interview With the Vampire,” her first published novel, she was a relatively unknown author. It features a solitary vampire named Louis who is recounting his life to a reporter, but Rice stated that the story was also her own.
She told The New York Times in 1986, “I immersed myself in the character.” “I was finally able to describe my reality, the dark, gothic influence on my childhood. It is not fantastical to me. My youth was brought to life for me.” Numerous critics dismissed the book without understanding its tone or its appeal.
Leo Braudy wrote in The Times that Rice is a “dazzling storyteller” according to publicity. “However, there is no narrative here, only a series of sometimes effective but always essentially static tableaus from Roger Corman films and some selfconscious soliloquies from Spiderman comics, all wrapped in a bloated, pompous language.” The reading public, however, latched on; “Interview With the Vampire” became a bestseller, and Rice found herself with a sizeable fan base, which she proceeded to entertain with a series of subsequent novels that collectively became known as the Vampire Chronicles.
The books, totaling more than a dozen, are widely credited with reviving interest in all things vampire, which has since been reflected on the big and small screens as well as the stage. But Rice, who wrote dozens of books, was not a single-topic author.
- She authored stand-alone novels such as “Cry to Heaven” (1982), which follows the careers of two castrati.
- Under the pen name Anne Rampling, she penned novels featuring sex slaves, such as “Exit to Eden” (1985).
- And as A.N.
- Roquelaure, she wrote the “Sleeping Beauty” series of erotic novels.
- Rice’s fans are passionate and willing to immerse themselves in the universes she has created.
In 1993, she stated on the ABC News program “Day One”: “When I go to my book signings, I am the most boring person there. I adore the fact that everyone else is dripping with velvet and lace and bringing me dead roses wrapped in leather handcuffs.” Her works resonated not only with fans of gothic romance, but also with readers who perceived a spiritual element in them, as well as gay and transgender readers who identified with their themes of isolation and alienation.
Critics may have occasionally dismissed her writing, but she aimed higher. In 1990, she told The Times, “What matters to me is that people know that my books are serious, that they are meant to make a difference, and that they are meant to be literature.” “I couldn’t care less if that sounds stupid or pretentious.
They are meant to be in those backpacks on the Berkeley campus, alongside Castaneda and Tolstoy and anyone else. It drives me insane when I’m dismissed as a “pop” author.” Howard Allen O’Brien was born in New Orleans on October 4, 1941, to parents Howard and Katherine O’Brien.
- Strangely, she was named after her father, but by first grade she had adopted the name Anne.) Her father was a postal worker, and her mother was a housewife.
- She grew up in New Orleans, writing plays that she and her three sisters would perform and imagining ghostly figures in the windows of New Orleans mansions as she strolled around the city.
Films such as “Dracula’s Daughter” (1936) left a lasting impression. Her Roman Catholic upbringing and education, which was rich in symbolism, fueled her already vivid imagination. “To sit and listen to the miracles that occurred to this saint or that saint, or how someone floated in the air during prayer, was just par for the course at Catholic school,” she explained.
What is Anne Rice most renowned for?
Anne Rice, who gave vampires new life, dies at age 80. NEW YORK (AP) —, the author whose lush, best-selling gothic tales, including “Interview With the Vampire,” reimagined vampires as tragic antiheroes, has died. She was 80 years old. Rice passed away late on Saturday night due to complications from a stroke, her son Christopher Rice announced on her Facebook page and on Twitter.
Christopher Rice, another author, wrote, “As a writer, she taught me to defy genre boundaries and surrender to my obsessive passions.” “During her final hours, I sat by her hospital bed in awe of her achievements and bravery.” Later, Rice’s 1976 novel “Interview With the Vampire” was adapted into the 1994 film “Interview With the Vampire,” which was directed by Neil Jordan and starred Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.
It will also premiere on AMC and AMC+ the following year. The novel “Interview With the Vampire,” in which reporter Daniel Molloy interviews vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac, was Rice’s first, but she would go on to write more than 30 books and sell more than 150 million copies worldwide over the next five decades.
Thirteen of those were installments in the “Vampire Chronicles” series, which she began in 1976. Long before “Twilight” or “True Blood,” Rice introduced sumptuous romance, female sexuality, and queerness to the supernatural genre; many interpreted “Interview With the Vampire” as an allegory for homosexuality.
In her 2008 memoir, “Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession,” Rice stated, “I wrote novels about people who are shut out of life for various reasons.” This became a major theme in my novels: how an outcast suffers, how he or she is shut out of various levels of meaning and, ultimately, from human life.
Born Howard Allen Frances O’Brien in 1941, she grew up in New Orleans, the setting for many of her novels. Her postal worker father also created sculptures and wrote fiction in his spare time. Alice Borchardt, her older sister, also wrote fantasy and horror fiction. Rice was 15 years old when his mother died.
Rice, who grew up in an Irish Catholic family, had aspirations of becoming a priest or a nun before she realized women weren’t permitted to do so. Rice frequently wrote about the ups and downs of her spiritual journey. She announced in 2010 that she was no longer a Christian “I refuse to be homophobic.
I reject being antifeminist. I refuse to oppose artificial contraception.” “Long ago, I believed that the differences and disputes among Christians were of little consequence to the individual, and that one should simply live his or her life and stay out of it. However, I soon realized that it was not a simple task “Rice told Associated Press at the time.
“I came to the conclusion that I would lose my mind if I did not make this declaration.” In 1961, Rice wed the poet Stan Rice, who passed away in 2002. In the 1960s, they lived in the bohemian neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, where Rice described herself as “a square” who studied writing at San Francisco State University while everyone else partied.
- Christopher and Michelle, who died of leukemia at age 5 in 1972, were their children.
- Rice transformed one of her short stories into the novel “Interview With the Vampire” during her period of mourning for Michelle.
- Rice’s fascination with vampires dates back to her childhood viewing of the 1934 film “Dracula’s Daughter.” Rice: “I will never forget that film.” This has always been my conception of vampires: earthlings with heightened sensitivity and a fatalistic appreciation for life.
“Interview With the Vampire” was a huge success, especially in paperback, despite Rice’s initial difficulty in getting it published. She followed it up with two historical novels and three erotic novels written under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure, which she did not immediately continue.
- But in 1985, she published “The Vampire Lestat” about the character from “Interview With the Vampire” to whom she would continue to return until “Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat” in 2018.
- In the “Vampire Chronicles” by Anne Rice, some critics saw nothing but cheap eroticism.
- Others, however, including millions of readers, perceived the most significant interpretation of vampires since Bram Stoker.
“Let me suggest one reason why the books attracted a large readership. The prose was influenced by the author’s auditory and visual experiences “Rice authored a memoir. “I am a terrible reader. However, as a result of these auditory and visual lessons, I can write approximately five times faster than I can read.” Rice’s longtime editor, Victoria Wilson, recalled her as “a fierce storyteller who wrote large, lived quietly, and imagined worlds on a grand scale.” Wilson said in a statement, “She evoked the feelings of an age long before we knew what they were.” She was decades ahead of her time as a writer.
Rice will be interred privately at a family mausoleum in New Orleans, according to her family. In addition, a public celebration is scheduled for next year in New Orleans. In February, “Ramses the Damned: The Reign of Osiris,” a novel co-authored by Rice and her son Christopher, will be published. Follow Jake Coyle, AP Film Writer, on Twitter at: The title of “Interview With the Vampire” has been corrected in the first paragraph of this article.
Anne Rice, who gave vampires new life, dies at age 80.