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The Vampire Chronicles: Interview With the Vampire, the Vampire Lestat, and the Queen of the Damned [Paperback]

Anne Rice
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (431 customer reviews)


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Book Description

September 1989
Ah, the taste and feel of blood when all passion and greed is sharpened in that one desire!' Lestat: a vampire - but very much not the conventional undead, for Lestat is the truly alive. Lestat is vivid, ecstatic, stagestruck, and in his extravagant story he plunges from the lasciviousness of eighteenth-century Paris to the demonic Egypt of prehistory; from fin-de-siecle New Orleans to the frenetic twentieth-century world of rock superstardom - as, pursued by the living and the dead, he searches across time for the secret of his own dark immortality.
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.


Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

After the spectacular debut of Interview with the Vampire in 1976, Anne Rice put aside her vampires to explore other literary interests--Italian castrati in Cry to Heaven and the Free People of Color in The Feast of All Saints. But Lestat, the mischievous creator of Louis in Interview, finally emerged to tell his own story in the 1985 sequel, The Vampire Lestat.

As with the first book in the series, the novel begins with a frame narrative. After over a half century underground, Lestat awakens in the 1980s to the cacophony of electronic sounds and images that characterizes the MTV generation. Particularly, he is captivated by a fledgling rock band named Satan's Night Out. Determined both to achieve international fame and end the centuries of self-imposed vampire silence, Lestat takes command of the band (now renamed "The Vampire Lestat") and pens his own autobiography. The remainder of the novel purports to be that autobiography: the vampire traces his mortal youth as the son of a marquis in pre-Revolutionary France, his initiation into vampirism at the hands of Magnus, and his quest for the ultimate origins of his undead species.

While very different from the first novel in the Vampire Chronicles, The Vampire Lestat has proved to be the foundation for a broader range of narratives than is possible from Louis's brooding, passive perspective. The character of Lestat is one of Rice's most complex and popular literary alter egos, and his Faustian strivings have a mythopoeic resonance that links the novel to a grand tradition of spiritual and supernatural fiction. --Patrick O'Kelley --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Rice continues what promises to be a series with this fascinating sequel to her Interview with the Vampire. One of its characters, Lestat, encouraged by the telling of that story, narrates his own history, focusing on his boyhood transformation, subsequent wanderings, and constant attempts to rationalize his newly acquired immortality. Don't expect the usual stake-in-the-heart story; Rice is creating a new vampire mythos, mixing ancient Egyptian legends into her narrative, and weaving a rich and unforgettable tale of dazzling scenes and vivid personalities. This extraordinary book outclasses most contemporary horror fiction and is a novel to be savored. Highly recommended. Literary Guild alternate. Eric W. Johnson, Univ. of New Haven Lib., West Haven
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

  • Paperback
  • Publisher: Ballantine Books (P); Bxd Rei edition (September 1989)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0345364228
  • ISBN-13: 978-0345364227
  • Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (431 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,223,454 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anne Rice was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in English and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, as well as a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science. Anne has spent more of her life in California than in New Orleans, but New Orleans is her true home and provides the back drop for many of her famous novels. The French Quarter provided the setting for her first novel, Interview with the Vampire. And her ante-bellum house in the Garden District was the fictional home of her imaginary Mayfair Witches.

She is the author of over 30 books, most recently the Toby O'Dare novels Of Love and Evil, and Angel Time; the memoir, Called Out of Darkness;and her two novels about Jesus, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana. (Anne regards Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana as her best novel.)

Anne publicly broke with organized religion in July of 2010 on moral grounds, affirming her faith in God, but refusing any longer to be called "Christian." The story attracted surprising media attention, with Rice's remarks being quoted in stories all over the world.

Anne is very active on her FaceBook Fan Page and has over 745,000 followers. She answers questions every day on the page, and also posts on a variety of topics, including literature, film, music, politics, religion, and her own writings. She welcomes discussion there on numerous topics.

Her latest novel, The Wolves of Midwinter, a sequel to The Wolf Gift and part of a werewolf series set in Northern California in the present time, will be published on October 15, 2013. In these books --- The Wolf Gift Chronicles -- Anne returns to the classic monsters and themes of supernatural literature, similar to those she explored in her Vampire Chronicles, and tales of the Mayfair Witches. Her new "man wolf" hero, Reuben Golding, is a talented young man in his twenties who suddenly discovers himself in possession of werewolf powers that catapult him into the life of a comic book style super hero. How Reuben learns to control what he is, how he discovers others who possess the same mysterious "wolf gift," and how he learns to live with what he has become --- is the main focus of the series.

Her first novel, Interview with the Vampire, was published in 1976 and has gone on to become one of the best-selling novels of all time. She continued her saga of the Vampire Lestat in a series of books, collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles, which have had both great mainstream and cult followings.

Interview with the Vampire was made into a motion picture in 1994, directed by Neil Jordan, and starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst and Antonio Banderas. Anne's novel, Feast of All Saints about the free people of color of ante-bellum New Orleans became a Showtime mini series in 2001 and is available now on dvd. The script for the mini series by John Wilder was a faithful adaptation of the novel.

Anne Rice is also the author of other novels, including The Witching Hour, Servant of the Bones, Merrick, Blackwood Farm, Blood Canticle, Violin, and Cry to Heaven. She lives in Palm Desert, California, but misses her home in New Orleans. She hopes to obtain a pied a terre in the French Quarter there some time in the near future.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
74 of 78 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Total Genius February 13, 2002
Format:Mass Market Paperback
If Anne Rice had never written another book after "The Vampire Lestat," her reputation as a rare genius would have been created and sealed with this one novel.

Unlike most Rice fans, I read this book first, and it has always been my favorite of all the Vampire Chronicls, much more so than "Interview with a Vampire."

I cannot count how many times I have reread this book, and with each reading, I find a new richness, a new insight, a new awe-inspiring peak into the mind of a woman whose genius may be madness, but with whom I will gladly cross the line. (Case in point: This is the only book ever for which I stood in line for hours to have the author inscribe her name.)

I won't belabor the plot here; it is simply too baroque to try to put into simple words. Suffice to say that, in the first person, we meet Lestat, the teenaged son of an impoverished 18th-century nobleman, whose life is at best cold and harsh, at worst, a constant battle with cruelty of every sort for one's mere survival. One particularly dark and fiercely cold night, Lestat, a beautiful young man despite all his hardships, is out with his beloved dogs, hunting wolves. Into the strange fog he rides...and when he first hears the deep, surreal, and otherworldly voice calling him..."Wolf killer, wolf killer," we are there with him. And we are by his side as he becomes, in a strangely but riveting erotic passage, one of the undead. A vampire unto eternity.

All of Anne Rice's intensity, her eroticism, her love of history, her incredible sense of detail, and her dark view of the world is present in this book, much more so than "Interview with a Vampire."

It is my suggestion that, if you want to sample Anne Rice, and have never read any of her works, this may be the book you want to read. And if you know Rice's works but not this particular novel, I urge you not to deny yourself another minute. This is truly one of the must-reads of one's life.

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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Lestat and His Savage Garden April 13, 2012
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is only my third Anne Rice novel though I have been a long time supporter of hers and a fan of her work. Having only recently read Interview with the Vampire, the first book in the Chronicles, I immediately wanted to read the next book, The Vampire Lestat. I'm so glad I did because it gave me a better understanding and a stronger admiration for Interview, of which I had somewhat mixed emotions about upon finishing it.

In The Vampire Lestat, we learn more about Louis's maker and get to enjoy a nice long tale of his life story. We open in the 1980s with Lestat in New Orleans taking an interest in rock music and becoming a vocal celebrity. He has even sought out the book, Interview with the Vampire, to read and has determined much of it to be lies so he needs to set the record straight by writing his own book.

From here, we spend a lot of time with Lestat as a human and get to study the close loving relationship he had with his mother. We meet his vampire maker, Magnus. We learn that Lestat loved the stage and we see the early development of what would become the Theatre of the Vampires which played such a crucial part in Interview. We witness Lestat's bond with Armand, the vampire who became the head of the theatre and learn a lot about his story and his creator Marius, who Lestat begins to obsess over. And Marius introduces Lestat to "those who must be kept," who are the king and the queen of all vampires. This sets the reader up for the next book in the series, Queen of the Damned.

Rice excels at classic story telling, but treats her readers to a historical saga of fine vampire literature. Unlike the vampires today's generation obsess over, who are either blood thirsty monsters or sparkling romantics, Rice suffers her protagonist with questions of existence, being, and soul. Hers truly are vampires that will live forever, both on the page and in the minds of her readers.
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29 of 32 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best literary sequels of all time December 14, 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Published 9 years after "Interview with the Vampire", this sequel tells us the story of Lestat, the villain of the first book. Opening in 1985, we read that Lestat is now a "rock and roll" star. (Note to Anne Rice: people have not said "rock and roll" for quite some time...) This seems a strange change for the brooding vampire of the first book, and it's not entirely successful to me as a reader. It may have worked better in 1985, but by now, it seems a bit unnecessary and kind of silly. Thankfully, this plot is only a framing device for the life story of Lestat de Lioncourt (and that's why I insist on giving this book 5 stars.) "Lestat" is quite a different novel from the first in the series, but we are dealing with an entirely different vampire here than the depressed and vulnerable Louis (who remains my favorite vampire). Lestat's story goes throughout the centuries, and he meets other vampire's who tell their tales. This book is a fantastic pageant that goes back to Ancient Egyptian times, to classical Rome, to pagan Europe, to the times of the French Revolution, to an old, decaying Parisian cemetery and even up to the present time. "The Vampire Lestat" is a much denser novel than the first (which has now become a sort of prelude or teaser to the entire Vampire Chronicles) but it's just as enjoyable. This book seems to be the hands down favorite of most readers of the Vampire Chronicles, but this is not an incentive to read these books out of order. "Interview with the Vampire" contains some very important passages and character development that are important to your understand of the second (especially in one of the final sections of "Lestat"). Amazingly, Rice maintains the continuity between the two novels, and doesn't make any of the "revisionist history" in the second seem false or forced. (Of note is the explanation as to why Lestat's father but not mother was in the first book... that revelation is a shocking one.) Another fun aspect is Lestat's reaction to reading Stoker's "Dracula". And fear not, some of our favorite characters from the first book do appear again... in unexpected ways. One of my favorite characters to be introduced into this book was Akasha, who is the Queen of the Damned of the third novel.

With The Vampire Lestat, Rice again does a wonderful job with her prose; it's a beautifully written, exciting and captivating book. I had no idea where the book was going from one moment to the next, and it never disappointed. Rice even successfully depicts twentieth century America as a fascinating place to be. I never thought a drugstore would seem so interesting. Read this book, but don't read it too fast... savor it, it's worth the time.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars The story of Lestat
Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles is 2nd after Dracula as the quintessential vampire novels in my opinion.
The first 3 books in the chronicles must be read together. Read more
Published 2 days ago by Andrea D.
5.0 out of 5 stars The Vampire Lestat
This book flows and flows well. If you read Interview you are intimately acquainted with Lestat. The book tells part of the original story from his POV. Read more
Published 17 days ago by Book Lover
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
I absolutely loved this book. It gave you such a beautiful description of lestats side of the story. Such a well written vampiric history as well. Now on to queen of the dammed.
Published 22 days ago by shianne
5.0 out of 5 stars Love love love all these books!
I loved the "Interview with a Vampire" movie, so I don't know what took me so long to go find the rest of the books. Now I am hooked again. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Deborah M. Gordinier
5.0 out of 5 stars good book
a must read for anyone with the other two books of the trilogy loved every moment of it very gripping
Published 1 month ago by Jon Huggins
1.0 out of 5 stars Hard cover
I've never seen a hard cover so small. It is difficult for me to read it. There is no dust jacket either.
Published 1 month ago by Michael C. Bice
5.0 out of 5 stars Lestat
What is not to like about the Vampire Chronicles? This is by far my favorite of the series. In this story, Lestat becomes a character with whom you can almost immediately identify. Read more
Published 1 month ago by pandora
5.0 out of 5 stars A vampire series with fangs
The year is 1984, and Lestat is the famous lead singer of the group, The Vampire Lestat. He stumbles upon a simple little book, "Interview with the Vampire", starring Louis, his... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Crystal Starr Light
5.0 out of 5 stars I am a big Anne Rice fan ...
I've read everything that Anne Rice has written and have been totally
captivated by each novel (except Violin). Read more
Published 2 months ago by Patricia S. Whitt
4.0 out of 5 stars Love the work
While I love the actual book it wasn't what the picture showed cover wise and that disappointed me. I was hoping for an older copy to add to my collection being that this was the... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Steven Yates
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