No more witches and vampires: Anne Rice on her early works

Vampire-queen-turned-Christian-writer Anne Rice is answering reader questions about her faith and writing at Beliefnet this week, and many of her answers (and the questions) are quite interesting. One of the obvious questions to ask is how, from her current vantage point in the church, she looks back at the often lurid and grisly vampire novels that made her famous. Here's her reply to a question along those lines:
I don't write about the vampires and the witches anymore, not because I regret such work or feel guilty about it, far from it. I don't write about them because I can't be them anymore in fiction. I am some one else now. I live in a world where Salvation is a reality and the Light of Christ is a reality. So I can't enter that old dark world in which my fallen heroes were metaphors for my own lost soul, and my soul grieving for a lost faith in God. I changed. So my work had to change.
A quick Google search turned up this essay at Anne Rice's website in which she explains in more detail her attitude toward her vampire novels.

I've often wondered how artists, musicians, and other creators who convert to Christianity late in their careers look back at the work they produced before they found Christ. Rice observes that her vampire works chronicled her own spiritual wandering and search for God. (Indeed, you can't read Interview with the Vampire and not conclude that the author was trying to work through some serious questions about sin and free will.) Now that Rice has embraced Christianity, her earlier novels could actually stand as a travelogue of her own journey back to the church.

Rice may not want to revisit her witches and vampires, but I'll admit this has me interested in checking a few of her early novels out of the library. (I've only read the first one, and that was many years ago.) If you've read Rice's vampire novels, did you discern a spiritual or thematic shift as the series developed? Do they stand as milestones in Rice's return to the faith, or do you think they're better left forgotten in the light of her newer, faith-focused books?

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Comments (10)

It never to late to seek god face not in less you are already dead before you surrrender unto him.Just like people say that it never to late to go back to school to get your education.I think that because she wrote the novels that will always be there. It's almost like forgiveness, you see when we seek god and ask for forgiveness he not only forgive he forgets and through them in to rhe sea of forgiveness. Personalty I never read witch craft books.when i was a child i new not of the witch craft/witches and more than likely watch them. Like be witch and i brought my daughter harry potter the frist movie came out but UHH UHH!!! when i got it home and she put it on i found out then it was witch craft. I said then no more and when the rest of harry potter movies came out they just came oh well because i was not buying it nor was she going to the movirs to see it. that is a celebration of santan and i do not celebrate halloween i give satan no victory as he come to kill steal an to destroy. Anyway may god light shine upon her and she will forever keep seeking his face/keeping her faith in him and putting her hand in his hand.Let's just thank and praise god that one more sold is save!!!!.
Clerly Anne Rice is moving in the correct general direction, but she needs to finer tune her course. Catholoicism is not Christian in its essentials. If she doesn't see the light of evangelical Protestantism, she shall have moved from darkness to murk. I have been to these places. Catholicism uses Christ as bait, but never preaches His Gospel, only their own error laden version. Pray that her journey will continue to the true Light.
J. Bartlett, you sound very much like the pharisees. They "knew" that Christ was wrong in the way way that he worshipped and spoke and associated with the wrong people. Take a step back and a deep breath. I know many catholics whose Lord and Savior is Jesus Christ and some Protestants whose Lord and Savior is money, prestige or social standing. Perhaps you and I as protestant believers should try hard not to generalize nor condemn Anne Rice. Even the thief on the cross was welcomed by Jesus.
I am a Protestant born and raised, and proud of the Reformation. I have had many friends from earliest childhood who were Roman Catholic, and what they profess is not murk. For a Protestant to claim a monopoly on truth is no less murky than for the falliable humans who have held the title Bishop of Rome to do so. The point is to stop claiming "I know The Truth, you are A Heretic." God will judge, and we will all be wrong.
As an ex die-hard Irish Roman Catholic now born again thanks be to God all I would say to those who embrace this church as part of Christs kindom is compare all the Apostolic teachings and practice to what this church practised.
ie. Popery (the holy father???),/physical priesthood,transubstantiation( multiple locations and worship of Christ literally still on earth)/ Mary as co mediator between God and mankind,infant proxy faith water sprinkling rather than believers full immersion baptism/.necomancy( praying to and thru dead saints for answers to prayer)exclusivism ( clergy and laity)contradiction of the Lords actual words( 3days and 3 nights in tomb versus friday to sunday burial/ and finally negating the need to ask God for answers to prayer exclusively by not using the name above all names "JESUS".
Ex-Roman Catholics are like ex-smokers, and ex-Lutherans are the same. I grew up with Catholic kids who told some great Catholic jokes (who else would know the punch line?), and many of them became border-line atheists. On the other hand, lots of nice older ladies really feel closer to God if they can pray through the mediation of a woman, such as Mary. I know that the first church built in honor of Mary was in Ephesus, and I'm sure everyone can think up a reason why -- those Ephesians really missed their Diana, even if they had joined the new faith. I don't subscribe to any of those silly notions you mention, but I really do not feel threatened by the possibility that some Christians might embrace them, and God, being omnipotent, probably doesn't either. By the way, its too bad the Wittenberg Door's funny piece on the Protestant discovering, to his shock and horror, that Catholics read the Bible, isn't available on line. You have to work at creating a huge gulf between different denominations. Although the Pope would disagree, I recognize the Roman church as just one more denomination of this fractious band of incessant debaters known as Christians. Oh yes, we do all trace our faith back to Jesus, whatever we think we know of Him. I have never heard a Catholic pray without concluding "in Jesus's name..."
I have been to churches where the pastors lied to keep their position. To places where the pastor drove a vehicle worth more than most homes. To places where the color of your skin meant more to the people than Christ. Those are and will be individuals who for one reason or another, culture or just what they have been told by friends and family, will continue to falt any religion. I don't know what someone of the Catholic faith did to J. Bartlett, but it wasn't very good. Look past those who would rather control and have you follow them. Go to the ones who serve others in many ways, through the teachings of Christ Jesus. Then turn around and with the grace of God put out your hand and serve those who would persecute you. You never know which one will come to serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In God's Grace John
The only one to have a monopoly on the truth is God - not the Pope or his church (their claim).
If Anne Rice believes in prayers for the dead, papal infalibility, purgatory, indulgences, prayers to saints etc etc etc.... then yes she still needs to find the true light of the gospel. If she is unrepentant about her writing of novels about blood sucking (demonic) creatures & witchcraft then there is something very wrong my friends. Get some discernment by reading the bible and pray for Anne Rice.
Phil, your first sentence is irrefutable. I admit to some cynicism about Anne Rice writing religious novels. I was moderately thrilled by the concept of her first vampire novel, never got around to reading it, and was disgusted by the publicity for later sequels. I don't so much doubt her sincerity as I am reminded of the saying "You don't let them sing in the choir for the first five years..." (A humorous twist at http://windowsonwittenberg.blo..., then click the link "Christ Lestat" if you see where the parody is going). But I don't much care if SHE believes in prayers for the dead, papal infallibility, purgatory, prayers to saints... as long as nobody is telling me that I am mandated to do so. If you believe Satan is the enemy of God, then YOU need to find the true light of the Old Testament, in MY seldom humble opinion. But my opinion is not binding on you. What does God think of all this? I think God laughs at our petty theological polemics, except when some humans are so arrogant as to shed blood over them. "He has shown you oh man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" If Anne Rice has that down, it doesn't much matter what theological toys she wraps it up in.
i am christian but i am also very much drawn to the vampire myth. a commentator on the work of Bram Stoker's Dracula said that the character is actually a parody of Christ it is amazing that such an influential fiction writer like anne rice has made a turnaround in her writings and in a way, lift up the Lord Jesus. this is a great opportunity and i believe it is the Holy Spirit that is moving. i hope and pray that we christians will not get caught up in petty disagreements between catholicism and evangelicalism. though there are important issues there, let us not hinder the mighty way that God is working in the life of Ms. Rice. all of us are in our own spiritual journey. perhaps we can be less judgmental of ms rice's journey and instead share the Gospel of Christ the Lord by word and deed.

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