Happy October!

Feeling blessed and honored to receive this lovely edition of Interview with the Vampire. Thank you, Anne Rice, for writing this book and sharing such a wonderful story with us all. 🙏📚

Greetings

I am very happy with my new Hardcover 50th anniversary edition of "Interview with the vampire".

So I am considering replacing my worn paperback editions of "The Vampire Lestat" and "Queen of the damned" and I wonder, if anyone has heard anything about new editions of those as well?

Going to be in New Orleans for Halloween this year. I’m doing the Vampire Ball and the book event.
Does anyone know of any other Anne Rice events that may be going on in the area that weekend?

Hi! I recently came across a reel on Instgram that was cut out of an interview with Anne Rice and she was talking about why she liked/gravitated to vampires. I don't remember the exact words but she compared it to always feeling like an outsider etc. I wanted to send it to someone but I cannot for the life of me find it again so I figured I'd ask here :)

Home from NYCC day 2. Meeting Christopher was terrific and the IWTV 50th anniversary panel was so much fun. Very happy to finally have my copy of Reign of Osiris hand-signed by Christopher to complete my collection of signed copies of all of Anne’s novels.

I feel like a few separate times in this book she’s forgotten the eye colors she gives characters when first describing them, she described Aaron as having brilliant blue eyes multiple times then in the scene towards the end where Rowan and him are speaking in the bar they’re described as hazel. I’m pretty sure she does this with Julien once as well where she describes his eyes as blue most of the time then at one point they’re brown, I can’t remember specifically for him tho. Did anyone else notice ts? I also vaguely remember her saying Lionel had dark hair initially then later contradicting that saying he had strawberry blond hair. But I could be wrong about that one.

Edit- omfg yeah she did it again w Julien lol chapter 44 Michael describes him w “black eyes, white hair” and this mf was 100% said to have blue eyes when first introduced

Most like was a crew gift.

Ok, I haven’t read a witchy trilogy yet, and I’m now reading Blackwood Farm, so I know about Julien Mayfair only from this book and Merrick, and some online comments…

The question is, it look like this guy f*cked everyone he could, or is it just my impression? How many children he had, and partners? And what is wrong with him/why he was making so many babies with everyone?

Because it look like almost every modern white Mayfair his decendant, some several times, plus Black family line, pluse Blackwoods…

Spoilers are allowed

I'm so profoundly vexed that people keep insisting there is "romantic love" between these two in this novel. This is my third read and Louis' expression of absolute hatred for Lestat is unequivocal.

So why was Louis with Lestat? For the deep and fulfilling companionship? Obviously not as he was explicitly going to leave him.

And then Lestat murdered a child and trapped her in an eternal nightmare to also trap Louis. Claudia is the biggest victim in the book but her victimization was a calculated choice by Lestat to enslave Louis. By turning her into a vampire, Lestat proved his goal was to dominate, subjugate, obliterate, and in alwayscontrol those in his life. To eradicate their own will and make them extensions of himself. To bind them to his person no matter what they wanted.

And this is "love." When Louis would have never stayed with Lestat if not for Lestat's unprecedented act of cruelty and selfishness.

EDIT:

I should be clear that Lestat is a great villain, but it feels like so many people deny this, that he is very clearly the villain of the story.

I know Simon Vance is not for everyone, and I myself never thought he could voice Lestat or any of the other vampires, but I can't imagine anyone doing Louis better. In fact, I have a nice point of comparison as I'm going through the new IWTV audiobook. It's by no means bad but I prefer Vance.

He just gives Louis the perfect...ethereal, introspective, and melancholy energy that is at the heart of why he will probably always be my favorite protagonist.

I have barely started to chip away at my stack of Rice's books but I haven't been able to stop thinking about this section for days after reading it.

Does anyone know who is distributing the 50th anniversary edition of Interview with the Vampire in the UK?

It’s one of my mother’s favourite books and I’d absolutely love to get it for her for Christmas but it seems there are only US listings 😭

I’ve had the first three VC books for a very long time. I tried reading Interview With a Vampire, and fell off just after he was turned. I’m wanting to try the series again, but Interview is so detail heavy that I’m skipping over chunks of text.

Would I be missing anything that is important to the lore and not somewhat covered but the movie/show if I just skip to Leatat instead? Or is there a part of the book I could skip to that starts to picks up the pace?

Has anyone found vampire literature with the depth and creativity of Rice? I feel as though there is now a massive hole in the market and I am longing for something new. Does anyone else feel this way? Can you suggest any authors? What kind of subjects would you like to see tackled?
I just started the series again from the beginning, Rice is entirely unique with her literary prose and the depth of the world she created, truly phenomenal.

I don't want to do the Vampire series because I've seen Interview sooo many times and want to get surprised and engaged in a fresh story universe. My regular spooky-adjacent reading has been Stephen King and Charlaine Harris.

In the late 1990s, Anne Rice commissioned New Orleans artist Patricia Hardin, known for her hand-painted Mardi Gras ball invitations, to draw her characters for merch sold at The Anne Rice Collection, the boutique she opened in The Rink on Prytania and Washington.

This is not fanart ! Anne talked about the drawings on her old phone line !

On May 17, 1997, she said they already had a Claudia tote and t-shirt (rare but you can find this online selling for upwards of $400!!!) plus “a great Lestat drawing that I really love that Patricia Hardin did,” and that they’d worked hard to get as close as possible to how she saw him. She also mentioned Hardin had already drawn Rice’s houses.

On June 8, 1997: “Wait until you see the drawing of Louis on our new t-shirt. The drawing of Lestat is marvelous too. The drawing of Louis… really got Louis’ melancholy and Louis’ beauty.”

On June 12, 1997: the Louis drawing was coming in the next day for pictures and shirts. Then Hardin was “going to move on to Armand,” and after that possibly Deborah Mayfair and Mona, because fans were asking for Mayfair merch.

Those images basically vanished. Claudia still turns up. Lestat and Louis almost never do. I managed to track down a Reddit user who still had them printed on candles bought at Anne’s shop in 1998 for $5 !!! That’s official art, sold in her store, that the internet has pretty much lost! Unfortunately the owner did not want to sell as they were sentimental :(( but they were a total gem getting these photos for me!

If anyone has photos of the Lestat, Louis, or Claudia portraits (prints, shirts, totes, candles, mugs, any proof an Armand or Pandora portrait was finished), or any other merch from The Anne Rice Collection please post it/send them to me and let me know. This is a tiny official piece of Vampire Chronicles history that disappeared when the shop closed! I am on the hunt for anything that has to do with her shop - especially these portraits by Patricia Hardin and any merch with them on!

I read this when I was a teenager many years ago, but I figured this would be good way to revisit this. Tim Curry is just perfect here as the narrator, though it is made bittersweet with his recent passing. Had anyone else read/listened to this?

UPDATE. This is an abridged version, only three hours long. Thanks u/hjello_jello!

so I bought The Witching Hour from a book shop in New Orleans in Anne Rice’s old neighborhood. I originally picked it up after seeing that some of the tv series was filmed in the neighborhood that I had spent a huge portion of my life in. I read maybe the first few chapters.

A few days later, I drove to spend a few nights with my sister. I read to fall asleep, so I brought the book with me. As we were falling asleep, I told my sister about the book. She had never heard of it. We also talked about how I had recently gotten back into practicing my own personal craft after years of being made to feel it was silly/I was imagining things in a relationship I just got out of and honing some abilities that I have had for my entire life (such as clairvoyant dreams & communicating w/spirits). I have always hidden those parts of myself or been quick to write my experiences off as something else because it seems to be perceived as crazy. My sister was glad that I was getting back into it & has witnessed a few times where I knew things that were going to happen in advance or been approached by a family spirit of people we know/ knew things about their life that they had never told us due to communication w/their deceased relatives.

As we were falling asleep, I thought in my head that I wanted something to happen that would solidify confidence in those abilities. I left the next day to drive back home. Before I left, we went to lunch together. I realized that I might have left my book in her bed with. I said I was disappointed bc I was starting to like it a lot. She said she would double check when she got home. I wasn’t able to go back to get it because I had things to do at home.

So I am driving to my house (4hours away) and she texts me a picture of my book ( The Witching Hour) in her bed. She said ‘you did leave your book btw , but I’ll mail it to you sometime next week’

So I’ve been home for about a week now. All day today I’ve been thinking about how I wish I had the book back & wondering if I should just go buy another copy. I am walking out the door to go to work and sitting in my purse is the same copy I had brought to my sister’s of The Witching Hour. it definitely was not there before because I had just looked in the bag earlier in the day. I texted a picture of it to my sister and asked if she was sure she had my book. She sent me a pic of it back in her room. Now we both have the same copy of the book and we are both freaking out a little 😂