“The only power that exists is within ourselves.” – Anne Rice
Legacy is a thing that many people have questioned since the dawn of humanity. It continues to fascinate us because there is no one singular or correct answer. People are complicated, all of us are. We would do well to extend the grace of understanding and historical context to other individuals, dead or alive and whilst you do not have to like someone people make better critics if they understand nuance and the context in which a given person lived. In this hefty article, we will explore the complicated literary and personal legacy of the late gothic horror, religious fiction and queer erotica writer – Anne O’Brien Rice.
“Purity culture” or what I would call “neo-puritanism” has existed since the lavender scare and the AIDs crisis, setting its origins as we know it in the 90s. Purity culture is defined by Wikipedia as a “Christian emphasis on sexual purity that relies heavily on the (false) construct of female chastity or virginity.” Now, as all scientists know virginity is a social construct meant to hold none cis men in check but this problem expands beyond Christian bounds and often can lead to kink-shaming, bigotry, trans exclusionism, sex worker exclusionism and shaming authors of ‘contentious’ fiction. Whilst Anne Rice was not perfect I find it worthwhile to note questions of purity and goodness and evil and virtue plagued her most all her life and in her day (the 70s – 2010s) the discussion around ‘purity culture’ as we know it had just begun and she loudly opposed censorship and anti-gay rhetoric as well as being very loud about her sexuality and not identifying with womanhood despite her strict and traumatizing Catholic upbringing. With Anne Rice as an anti-censorship figure, I implore the reader to leave their biases at the door and look to further nuanced examination.
Interview With The Vampire (1976 novel) started as a short story that Anne Rice began to work through her grief over her late daughter. It was a fairly blunt allegory at the surface, she was the sorrowful dark-haired deeply emotional yet capable of atrocities queer French creole former planter, Louis de Pointe du Lac, (planter meaning one who owns a plantation – a passable byronic hero in the 70s, rightfully not so now), her husband Stan Rice a poet in his own right was the bisexual-biromantic ever charming and dandyish, Lestat de Lioncourt and her late daughter was The Vampire Claudia. Together they make a small yet unconventional family. However, it was not until Anne Rice wrote about Claudia’s death that Rice felt any closure for her daughter in short it was fictional catharsis. Queer friends of Anne Rice later told her they thought the book a queer allegory and whilst I do not believe Rice initially intended it, she certainly ran with it as the Vampire Chronicles only become more bi as time goes on and as Anne’s various interests in various characters shifted. Anne Rice said she couldn’t keep Lestat de Lioncourt off the page, and I, for one, am glad she seldom restrained the bi, blonde, Brat Prince – Lestat de Lioncourt.
While I am not black and thus will refrain from commenting on the politics of slavery portrayal in the south in the 70s I think it is safe to say, however much Louis de Pointe du Lac warrants an examination and he does, I encourage it. There were even then and even now much worse by way of romanticizing portrayals of American chattel slavery out there. Indeed, in the 1976 novel for all his vampiric atrocities, the one thing Louis de Pointe du Lac does feel remorse for is the sin of slavery. I don’t think Rice in this instance meant harm though I think she could’ve conceived it better. My problem is the precedent it set for ‘sexy slave owner’ as a trope in vampire fiction, as unfortunately, it was there before in a myriad of media. In The Tale of the Body Thief as well, Anne Rice didn’t set out to harm (in my opinion), however, the optics of a brown body taken over by an English man which has great allegorical potential is not executed in a way that can be nuanced and sympathetic it is rather abrupt and at times unclear what Rice means by this choice. The accusation that she was a pedophilia apologist (The Vampire Armand & Blood and Gold) is false as she rather loudly called out the Catholic Church on the pedophilia scandal sweeping the nation at the time to say she had odd sexual politics and perhaps not the most nuanced understanding of race as an Irish Catholic in New Orleans is entirely fair and whilst I always say: “write what you know.” Research is always encouraged and talking to minorities in person is always useful.
Of the fan fiction debacle, it is far more complicated than any fandom online wishes to admit. Anne Rice, according to the existing record, got word from her publisher that fan fiction would overtake her characters so, in Ricean fashion she responded with drastic measures filing lawsuits and being overall very protective of her characters. This is understandable – I sympathize with Rice being protective of her work and characters, it just isn’t how many other writers, including myself would react.
Anne Rice’s work deeply influenced me and by 20 I have written one novel which I am now editing and am slowly chipping away at a novella. Lestat de Lioncourt was my first canonical bisexual-biromantic representation and for that, I am always grateful.
“None of us really changes over time, we only become more fully what we are.” – Anne Rice
Works Cited
Holmes, Trevor. “Becoming-Other: (Dis)Embodiments of Race in Anne Rice’s Tale of the Body Thief.” Erudit, Trevor Holmes, 17 November 2006, https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/ron/2006-n44-ron1433/014004ar/. Accessed 30 June 2024.
Maven of the Eventide, and Elisa Hansen. “Vampire Reviews: Interview with the Vampire.” YouTube, Maven of the Eventide, 21 October 2014, https://youtu.be/OvdLKOO3YNY?si=0VsZQR4KFPdFvhL2. Accessed 30 June 2024.
Rice, Anne. Anne Rice’s Mayfair Chronicles: 3-Book Boxed Set: The Mayfair Witches, Lasher, and Taltos. Random House Publishing Group, 2023.
Rice, Anne. Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat: A Graphic Novel. Ballantine Books, 1991.
Rice, Anne. Blood and Gold (The Vampire Chronicles). Arrow, 2002.
Rice, Anne. Called out of darkness. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
Rice, Anne. Interview with the Vampire: Claudia’s Story. Yen Press, 2012.
Rice, Anne. Interview With the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles). Ballantine Books, 2004.
Rice, Anne. The Vampire Armand (The Vampire Chronicles, Book 6). Random House Publishing Group, 2000.
Rice, Anne. The Vampire Lestat (Vampire Chronicles). Ballantine Books, 2004.
Weekes, Princess. “Why Are There So Many Confederate Vampires?” YouTube, Princess Weekes, 28 December 2022, https://youtu.be/zT5unKXnSUk?si=V3xHGWtoFYRCQd44. Accessed 30 June 2024.
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