Here at Casa Mysterioso, instead of recycled site-owner publicity, we offer interviews with other people in the arts--writers, musicians, actors, entertainers, and sometimes just plain characters. We add new ones all the time, and site visitors are invited to contribute. If we use your interview, we'll pay $35. Query by e-mail.

Interview with Jan Burke
Interview with Jeremiah Healy
Ben and Diane (An Interview with Stephen Booth)
Cold Days and Deadly Nights (An Interview with Steve Hamilton)
Mysteries (An Interview with Irene Marcuse)
The Stone Monkey (An Interview with Jeff Deaver)
The Salaryman's Wife (An Interview with Sujata Massey)
A Kiss Gone Bad (An Interview with Jeff Abbott)
Charlotte Justice (An Interview with Paula Woods)
Blood Money (An Interview with Rochelle Krich)
Letter From New Orleans: (An interview With Andy J. Forest)
The Lady From Charm City (An Interview with Laura Lippman)
Crescent City Views (An Interview with Anne Rice)

 

 

Crescent City Views
(An Interview with Anne Rice)
by Melinda Shelton

Anne Rice, born Howard Allen O'Brien, is as much a part of New Orleans as the haunting "cities of the dead" above-ground cemeteries she writes about in her novels.

After several decades of living and writing in San Francisco, Rice and her family, artist/poet husband Stan and author/son Christopher, returned to her hometown in 1988.

Dedicated fans daily flock to the Rice mansion at the corner of First and Chestnut streets, where they leave notes or stand in silence, seemingly overwhelmed by the thought of being so close to where Lestat, David, Louis and other beloved characters live in Rice's rich imagination.

She is Anne Rice, the story weaver who carries her readers beyond the wildest stretches of their imagination.

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After living away from New Orleans for so many years, how does it feel now? Is the Garden District home?

AR: It's a great dream to be living in the middle of this neighborhood. I grew up on the edge of it actually, and remember walking through it, and to be in a house right in the middle of it is the fulfillment of a dream."

Do you ever get out and wander through the streets like you did as a child?

AR: Oh, yes. Strangely enough, the streets are as deserted now as they were when I was a child. People live here, but you don't find them out in the streets. It's a little eerie sometimes.

You've written that you played in Lafayette Cemetery when you were a child. Do you still go there?

AR: Stan and I actually do take walks across the cemetery. It's still very beautiful, quite inspiring.

You were raised strict Roman Catholic, yet after your daughter's death in 1972 and before you considered yourself, what, agnostic? A non-believer? What about today?
 
AR: It was the Mystery of the Incarnation that drew me back in 1998. You know, the idea that a completely abstract god would take on a human body to better know his creation. That idea and I'm not speaking for the Church, I¹m speaking for myself that idea to me was absolutely compelling.

So you returned?

AR: I did. I wanted to go back to Communion.

Your reconciliation with the church coincided with a near-death experience, didn't it?

AR: Strangely, yes.

In December 1998, you and Stan were married in a Catholic ceremony, and then you unexpectedly became ill?

AR: We were married on a Saturday and a reception was held at St. Elizabeth's. The next day, Sunday, I didn't feel well at all and spent most of the day in bed. Monday morning I slipped into a coma.

I recall the headlines: Anne Rice near death.

AR: I never even knew I had diabetes. It was the strangest bunch of experiences all together, can I tell you? But when I could get out of bed, I went right away to Mass and Communion. I go at least once a week. I never miss.

I've read where you've said you feel like a gay man trapped inside a woman's body. How so?

AR: [laughing] Yes, I've said that. No matter what I write, my characters always turn out to be bisexual. It just happens, and I'm very happy with it I think it's what I see as an ideal.

Your son, Christopher, is gay. Was that a surprise to you?

AR: Really, I was amazed. I had no clue that he was gay.

Does it worry you? His openness?

AR: I think I felt the conventional fears, you know, that nothing bad would happen to him. The conventional fears you feel for all of your gay friends that people who despise gays will not hurt them.

And now he's a successful author with Density of Souls.

AR: Oh, yes. I'm very proud of him, very proud of his courage.

What did you think when you read his manuscript?

AR: I had such trepidation at the thought of having to read [it] and not liking it! What would I tell him?

But you liked it?

AR: Oh, yes, very much. It's fast-moving, far-reaching, the characters are rich and interesting.

Some people undoubtedly think Chris had his book published because of you, not because it's really that good. Are they right?

AR: Publishers are not about to take on a novel if they don¹t think it's a good novel. Even my agent would have turned it down if she had thought it was bad.

Tell me about your newest book, Merrick. It's another in the Vampire Chronicles?

AR: It's the ninth. Merrick's a real sorceress. I think in The Witching Hour, Lasher, Taltos, the Mayfair witches didn't really use their power like Merrick uses hers. I love working with that kind of power. I love describing it.

You obviously do immense research for your books. This one includes voodoo, Brazilian Candomble, Santaria.

AR: We did a lot of running around town to get that voodoo altar Merrick uses. I did research on voodoo in New Orleans. We found the most amazing store; a giant store filled with black candles, candles of all colors. You can buy a candle that has a label on it that allows you to list all of your enemies. [laughs] We have a ball every time we go there.

Where is it? What's the name?

AR: Oh, I'd better not say. They might put a spell on me.

You believe in voodoo, witchcraft?

AR: I have an immense respect for these things. I'm a radical Catholic. My mind is open to experience.

So you like Merrick?

AR: I really do. All of my books' subjects are dark. And some of them are more fun than others. That's Merrick. It's fun and more of an adventure

You know, some of your fans consider Lestat and Louis and David as real. Isn't that kind of weird?

AR: People have left flowers here with notes on them saying they need Lestat. Bring him back. It blows my mind sometimes.

And Lestat is back.

AR: [smiling] Oh, yes.

You read the notes.

AR: I do, yes.

*The above comments were adapted from a lengthy interview Melinda Shelton conducted with Anne Rice in August 2000 that appeared in a story in the October issue of the Lambda Book Report and the Nov. 30 issue of Southern Voice.

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