Thrilling ‘Interview’ revives Rice’s beloved ‘Vampire’ in style
Today, sexy vampires are a staple of pop culture, but it hasn’t always been that way. Up until the last few decades, vampires have been mostly interpreted as a metaphor for the dangers of an uncontrolled libido, and were accordingly depicted in horror fiction as monsters to be resisted and destroyed, no matter how alluring they might seem.
Anne Rice changed all that. Before “True Blood” or “Twilight,” or any of the other popular vampire fantasy sagas that have played on the more seductive aspects of the vampire mythos, her 1976 debut novel “Interview with the Vampire” paved the way by forcing readers to identify with its “evil” narrator.
Suddenly, the monster was the hero of his own story instead of the villain in someone else’s, allowing us to embrace our vicarious participation in his sensual pleasures and face a fact we all suspect in our hearts to be true: that given the chance, each and every one of us would probably choose to be a vampire.
That can be a disturbing revelation for some, and Rice’s book wasn’t an instant hit; reviews from critics, who weren’t ready to see the ocean of counter-cultural nuance beneath the shocking and gory details of the plot, were mostly dismissive.
