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Interview with the Vampire (Vampire Chronicles) Paperback – Bargain Price, March 18, 1997
Amazon.com Review
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. --Patrick O'Kelley
From Library Journal
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
“Unrelentingly erotic . . . sometimes beautiful, and always unforgettable.”—Washington Post
“If you surrender and go with her . . . you have surrendered to enchantment, as in a voluptuous dream.”—Boston Globe
“A chilling, thought-provoking tale, beautifully frightening, sensuous, and utterly unnerving.”—Hartford Courant
From the Paperback edition.
From the Publisher
Lisa Congelosi, Ballantine Sales Rep.
About the Author
From the Paperback edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
"But how much tape do you have with you?" asked the vampire, turning now so the boy could see his profile. "Enough for the story of a life?"
"Sure, if it's a good life. Sometimes I interview as many as three or four good people a night if I'm lucky. But it has to be a good story. That's only fair, isn't it?"
"Admirably fair," the vampire answered. "I would like to tell you the story of my life, then. I would like to do that very much."
"Great," said the boy. And quickly he removed a small tape recorder from his brief case, making a check of the cassette and batteries. "I'm really anxious to hear why you believe this, why you--"
"No," said the vampire abruptly. "We can't begin that way. Is your equipment ready?"
"Yes," said the boy.
"Then sit down. I'm going to turn on the overhead light."
"But I thought vampires didn't like the light," said the boy. "If you think the dark adds atmosphere--" But then he stopped. The vampire was watching him with his back to the window. The boy could make out nothing of his face now, and something about the still figure there distracted him. He started to say something again but he said nothing. And then he sighed with relief when the vampire moved towards the table and reached for the overhead cord.
At once the room was flooded with a harsh yellow light. And the boy, staring up at the vampire, could not repress a gasp. His fingers danced backwards on the table to grasp the edge. "Dear God!" he whispered, and then he gazed, speechless, at the vampire.
The vampire was utterly white and smooth, as if he were sculpted from bleached bone, and his face was as seemingly inanimate as a statue, except for two brilliant green eyes that looked down at the boy intently like flames in a skull. But then the vampire smiled almost wistfully, and the smooth white substance of his face moved with the infinitely flexible but minimal lines of a cartoon. "Do you see?" he asked softly?
The boy shuddered, lifting his hand as if to shield himself from a powerful light. His eyes moved slowly over the finely tailored black coat he'd only glimpsed in the bar, the long folds of the cape, the black silk tie knotted at the throat, and the gleam of the white collar that was as white as the vampire's flesh. He stared at the vampire's full black hair, the waves that were combed back over the tips of the ears, the curls that barely touched the edge of the white collar.
"Now, do you still want the interview?" the vampire asked.
The boy's mouth was open before the sound came out. He was nodding. Then he said, "Yes."
The vampire sat down slowly opposite him and, leaning forward, said gently, confidentially, "Don't be afraid. Just start the tape."
And then he reached out over the length of the table. The boy recoiled, sweat running down the sides of his face. The vampire clamped a hand on the boy's shoulder and said, "Believe me, I won't hurt you. I want this opportunity. It's more important to me than you can realize now. I want you to begin." And he withdrew his hand and sat collected, waiting.
It took a moment for the boy to wipe his forehead and his lips with a handkerchief, to stammer that the microphone was in the machine, to press the button, to say that the machine was on.
"You weren't always a vampire, were you?" he began.
"No," answered the vampire. "I was a twenty-five-year-old man when I became a vampire, and the year was seventeen ninety-one."
The boy was startled by the preciseness of the date and he repeated it before he asked, "How did it come about?"
"There's a simple answer to that. I don't believe I want to give simple answers," said the vampire. "I think I want to tell the real story--."
"Yes," the boy said quickly. He was folding his handkerchief over and over and wiping his lips now with it again.
"There was a tragedy--" the vampire started. "It was my younger brother--. He died." And then he stopped, so that the boy could clear his throat and wipe at his face again before stuffing the handkerchief almost impatiently into his pocket.
"It's not painful, is it?" he asked timidly.
"Does it seem so?" asked the vampire. "No." He shook his head. "It's simply that I've only told this story to one other person. And that was so long ago. No, it's not painful--.
"We were living in Louisiana then. We'd received a land grant and settled two indigo plantations on the Mississippi very near New Orleans--."
"Ah, that's the accent--" the boy said softly.
For a moment the vampire stared blankly. "I have an accent?" He began to laugh.
And the boy, flustered, answered quickly. "I noticed it in the bar when I asked you what you did for a living. It's just a slight sharpness to the consonants, that's all. I never guessed it was French."
"It's all right," the vampire assured him. "I'm not as shocked as I pretend to be. It's only that I forget it from time to time. But let me go on--."
"Please--" said the boy.
"I was talking about the plantations. They had a great deal to do with it, really, my becoming a vampire. But I'll come to that. Our life there was both luxurious and primitive. And we ourselves found it extremely attractive. You see, we lived far better there than we could have ever lived in France. Perhaps the sheer wilderness of Louisiana only made it seem so, but seeming so, it was. I remember the imported furniture that cluttered the house." The vampire smiled. "And the harpsichord; that was lovely. My sister used to play it. On summer evenings, she would sit at the keys with her back to the open French windows. And I can still remember that thin, rapid music and the vision of the swamp rising beyond her, the moss-hung cypresses floating against the sky. And there were the sounds of the swamp, a chorus of creatures, the cry of the birds. I think we loved it. It made the rosewood furniture all the more precious, the music more delicate and desirable. Even when the wisteria tore the shutters off the attic windows and worked its tendrils right into the whitewashed brick in less that a year-- Yes, we loved it. All except my brother. I don't think I ever heard him complain of anything, but I knew how he felt. My father was dead then, and I was head of the family and I had to defend him constantly from my mother and sister. They wanted to take him visiting, and to New Orleans for parties, but he hated these things. I think he stopped going altogether before he was twelve. Prayer was what mattered to him, prayer and his leatherbound lives of the saints.
"Finally, I built him an oratory removed from the house, and he began to spend most of every day there and often the early evening. It was ironic, really. He was so different from us, so different from everyone, and I was so regular! There was nothing extraordinary about me whatsoever." The vampire smiled.
"Sometimes in the evening I would go out to him and find him in the garden near the oratory, sitting absolutely composed on a stone bench there, and I'd tell him my troubles, the difficulties I had with the slaves, how I distrusted the overseer or the weather or my brokers-- all the problems that made up the length and breadth of my existence. And he would always listen, making only a few comments, always sympathetic, so that when I left him I had the distinct impression he had solved everything for me. I didn't think I could deny him anything, and I vowed that no matter how it would break my heart to lose him, he could enter the priesthood when the time came. Of course, I was wrong." The vampire stopped.
For a moment the boy only gazed at him and then he started as if awakened from a deep thought, and he floundered, as if he could not find the right words. "Ah-- he didn't want to be a priest?" the boy asked. The vampire studied him as if trying to discern to meaning of his expression. Then he said:
"I meant that I was wrong about myself, about my not denying him anything." His eyes moved over the far wall and fixed on the panes of the window. "He began to see visions."
"Real visions?" the boy asked, but again there was hesitation, as if he were thinking of something else.
"I don't think so," the vampire answered. "It happened when he was fifteen. He was very handsome then. He had the smoothest skin and the largest blue eyes. He was robust, not thin as I am now and was then-- but his eyes-- it was as if when I looked into his eyes I was standing alone on the edge of the world-- on a windswept ocean beach. There was nothing but the soft roar of the waves.
Well," he said, his eyes still fixed on the window panes, "he began to see visions. He only hinted at this at first, and he stopped taking his meals altogether. He lived in the oratory. At any hour of day or night, I could find him on the bare flagstones kneeling before the altar. And the oratory itself was neglected. He stopped tending the candle or changing the altar clothes or even sweeping out the leaves. One night I became really alarmed when I stood in the rose arbor watching him for one solid hour, during which he never moved from his knees and never once lowered his arms, which he held outstretched i...
- Print length352 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBallantine Books
- Publication dateMarch 18, 1997
- Dimensions6.03 x 0.87 x 9.18 inches
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Product details
- ASIN : B005CDV01I
- Publisher : Ballantine Books (March 18, 1997)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 352 pages
- Item Weight : 13.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 6.03 x 0.87 x 9.18 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #12,215,647 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,403 in Vampire Horror
- #37,769 in Deals in Books
- #50,611 in Psychological Fiction (Books)
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About the author
Anne Rice was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, which provided the backdrop for many of her famous novels. She was the author of more than 30 books, including her first novel, Interview with the Vampire, which was published in 1976. It has since gone on to become one of the best-selling novels of all time, and was adapted into a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst, and Antonio Banderas. In addition to The Vampire Chronicles, Anne was the author of several other best-selling supernatural series including Mayfair Witches, Queen of the Damned, the Wolf Gift, and Ramses the Damned. Under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure, Anne was the author of the erotic (BDSM) fantasy series, The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy. Under the pen name Anne Rampling she was the author of two erotic novels, Exit to Eden and Belinda. A groundbreaking artist whose work was widely beloved in popular culture, Anne had this to say of her work: "I have always written about outsiders, about outcasts, about those whom others tend to shun or persecute. And it does seem that I write a lot about their interaction with others like them and their struggle to find some community of their own. The supernatural novel is my favorite way of talking about my reality. I see vampires and witches and ghosts as metaphors for the outsider in each of us, the predator in each of us...the lonely one who must grapple day in and day out with cosmic uncertainty."
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Louis de Pointe du Lac was was twenty five year old plantation owner when he was turned into a vampire by his maker who needed the riches Louis possessed. Louis finds the experience of being a vampire story worthy and always felt that his maker Lestat was too indifferent to the wonders of their senses and their vampire powers.
Louis was fascinated by Lestat as a human, but once he became a vampire himself he was no longer under the vampiric glamour, suddenly he realized that he couldn’t stand being around his maker. Unfortunately there were things he needed to learn and Lestat was the only vampire available to teach him what he needed to know. Such as the fact that Louis hated killing humans and Lestat withheld the knowledge that animal blood was would also sustain them.
Eventually there are those on the plantation who become suspicious of the strange men, and there is and uprising and the workers come for Lestat and Louis and they are forced to flee.
Escaping to New Orleans Louis finds himself in a state of near starvation and sees a young girl clinging to her mother who had just died from a disease that would soon claim the child. Thinking he is being merciful, Louis drains her, but Lestat turns her and and makes her into a vampire child named Claudia. They spoil her and delight in her presence, but as much as she learns she can never grow a woman’s body, even though she has a woman’s mind.
Eventually Claudia becomes angry with Lestat for the state of her forever childhood and tries to him, and Louis and Claudia flee him and go to Paris together. There the search for and eventually find other vampires which will be both for their enlightenment and their downfall.
This was the first of several of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, and there are people who didn’t like this book. I liked it very much, but I think some people didn’t like it because there is a discrepancy between the Lestat and Louis in this book and the ones in the following books. Lestat is way more fun in the next book and Louis eventually is a friend of his. Lestat was not an old vampire when he made Louis, in fact he wanted Louis’ plantation to house his father who was still alive. I’m also pretty certain Anne Rice just had the idea of writing this book, but didn’t have all the other books in her head yet. However it happened, this book wasn’t as much fun as THE VAMPIRE LESTAT or my favorite THE TALE OF THE BODY THEIF, but in honor of the Halloween picks I decided to reread this and it’s still pretty good.
Well, I will tell you, this novel is right at home with these classics.
As I read this novel the main story blazed like a great flame and magically lit my imagination and memory leaving an indelible and endearing mark .
"Anne Rice's indomitable spirit shines and here you see how her intricate descriptions and talent of invoking deep emotions could fuel a literary career of legendary proportion."
In this story Louis relates a tale of his reluctant immortality, a morose and emotionally frail man who has suffered great loss. Taken over by a force a charisma embodied in the likes of the vampire Lestat, a vain, selfish, sadistic, and 'even' *gasp* ..sardonic individual driven by his mercurial and unbridled whims. This book transformed the typical sinister vampire of mysterious gloom and doom into a wild byronic character full of philosophy and ideas, topped with a stylish and dramatic flair. An entrepreneur of acquiring property and means of great wealth. Never mind the old dark and dank castles of old, these immortals live in the lap of luxury in every way. Lestat ,you see, though not the main character somehow seems to dominate the narrative and oddly Lestat has forever seemed to be present in the chronicles even when he is not. I believe he is one of the greatest literary characters of our time and is forever entertaining in his adventures good and bad.
In the tale we are transported to New Orleans 200 years ago. In Anne's words gabled houses come to life and you feel as if the tension is real. You can practically hear the crickets chirping in the night and feel the sensation, the desperation Louis conveys. There is a kind of preternatural longing in the progression of the events. Events addressing deep seated subjects that we have at one time or another felt in our psyche and maybe could not articulate?
What I found most interesting is this novels structure. It is quite different from any I have ever read. On contemplating this I realized there are passages in 'Interview' that are very like our deep unconscious dreams, so real and full of odd circumstances you wake remembering the whole but then small fragments come back during the day. There are so many odd occurrences a doll shop, a tower, a subterranean lair, Armand scaling a tower with Louis, fighting monstrous creatures, along with surprising and terrible incidences that fill the whole. There is the main events that shift and change place but will end up uniting in a surprising way.
I think it would not be too far fetched to compare this work to a surrealist painting such as Dali. You have the basis of a regular painting. When viewing his work it draws you in, you start to realize a clock is not just a clock it is melting on the landscape in which it lay and is quite altered and with a title like 'Persistence of Memory' the painting stirs the imagination to no end.
Here in IWTV you have man transformed to something unnatural a creature seeking comfort and there are relationships but they are severely altered by the vampiric natures of these individuals. The whole question of death and our existence is challenged and begs for conversation on the subject of immortality.
Claudia is a lovely young girl eternally trapped in a childs body and the limitations of her stature brings terrible frustration. Those who fall for her compulsive charms are usually teetering on the threshold of doom. Louis is repulsed by his need to kill and tries in vain to fight it with alternatives. His relationships crumble and his inner drive to survive propels him forward. Torn by his desire to love and his circumstantial and inner fluctuating need for independence.
One of the greatest inventions that I feel seals this story into immortality is the blending of Theatre and Vampirism. The reality of the vampiric condition is portrayed in a theatrical production luring a mortal audience into an entertainment that is a true twist of the ordinary suspension of disbelief.
In Interview Anne Rice raises a production that envelopes you in layers of atmosphere and longing. Many authors draw from deep pain and here Anne Rice transformed hers into a masterpiece.
This book prompted me to attend the 'Anne Rice Vampire Lestat Ball'. Check it out @ http://www.arvlfc.com I was amazed at the people who loved her work. It was incredible to walk the streets of New Orleans and get a feel for what she was talking about. 'Interview With a Vampire' opened up a world I never knew. Her presence on Facebook and Amazon has taught me so much about her process and the art of writing and for this I am forever grateful. This year is a banner year for Anne Rice fans in that there is a new book arriving called 'Prince Lestat.' I highly recommend attending the ball if not this year then next. You will most likely see Anne Rice there and see the place where it all began.
Did I fail to mention.... I love this book!
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I found much of what they were feeling applied to humans in a smaller space of time. So much pain and loss as well as love, centuries of which they have endured in the shadows of the world.
Reviewed in India on July 25, 2023