Interview with the Vampire

By: Anne Rice

Narrated by: Simon Vance

40th ANNIVERSARY EDITION • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, "a magnificent, compulsively readable thriller...Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth—the education of the vampire” (Chicago Tribune). • The inspiration for the hit television series

The time is now.

We are in a small room with the vampire, face to face, as he speaks--as he pours out the hypnotic, shocking, moving, and erotically charged confessions of his first two hundred years as one of the living dead. . .

He speaks quietly, plainly, even gently . . . carrying us back to the night when he departed human existence as heir--young, romantic, cultivated--to a great Louisiana plantation, and was inducted by the radiant and sinister Lestat into the other, the "endless," life . . . learning first to sustain himself on the blood of cocks and rats caught in the raffish streets of New Orleans, then on the blood of human beings . . . to the years when, moving away from his final human ties under the tutelage of the hated yet necessary Lestat, he gradually embraces the habits, hungers, feelings of vampirism: the detachment, the hardened will, the "superior" sensual pleasures.

He carries us back to the crucial moment in a dark New Orleans street when he finds the exquisite lost young child Claudia, wanting not to hurt but to comfort her, struggling against the last residue of human feeling within him . . .

We see how Claudia in turn is made a vampire--all her passion and intelligence trapped forever in the body of a small child--and how they arrive at their passionate and dangerous alliance, their French Quarter life of opulence: delicate Grecian statues, Chinese vases, crystal chandeliers, a butler, a maid, a stone nymph in the hidden garden court . . . night curving into night with their vampire senses heightened to the beauty of the world, thirsting for the beauty of death--a constant stream of vulnerable strangers awaiting them below . . .

We see them joined against the envious, dangerous Lestat, embarking on a perilous search across Europe for others like themselves, desperate to discover the world they belong to, the ways of survival, to know what they are and why, where they came from, what their future can be . . .

We follow them across Austria and Transylvania, encountering their kind in forms beyond their wildest imagining . . . to Paris, where footsteps behind them, in exact rhythm with their own, steer them to the doors of the Théâtre des Vampires--the beautiful, lewd, and febrile mime theatre whose posters of penny-dreadful vampires at once mask and reveal the horror within . . . to their meeting with the eerily magnetic Armand, who brings them, at last, into intimacy with a whole brilliant and decadent society of vampires, an intimacy that becomes sudden terror when they are compelled to confront what they have feared and fled . . .

In its unceasing flow of spellbinding storytelling, of danger and flight, of loyalty and treachery, Interview with the Vampire bears witness of a literary imagination of the first order.

©1976 Anne Rice (P)2011 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"[A] magnificent, compulsively readable thriller...Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth - the education of the vampire.” (Chicago Tribune)

“Unrelentingly erotic...sometimes beautiful, and always unforgettable.” (Washington Post)

“If you surrender and go with her...you have surrendered to enchantment, as in a voluptuous dream.” (Boston Globe)

Heartbreaking Story about Loss and Humanity

I completely love this story. It is dripping with ambiance and pain in every page. It is not a feel-good story but if you want to indulge in a gothic, despair-ridden story, this would be a story to check out. It is very, very heavy with description, metaphor, and imagery which could make it seem slow to some people, so be aware. Also, the narrator uses a light French accent through most of the story to match the main character. I thought this added something special to the story, but if you're picky about accents or are French, I could see this being pretty annoying.

great I loved it!

I'd always loved the movie and I'm glad I finally got the book. Definitely worth the credit. Narrator was great. I listened to it in two days.

great story

loved the story
very deep.
super good
read it
please
thank
you
very
much

EPIC

An epic reading of an equally epic tale. A modern mythos in its making, sensual, edgy with such fleshed out characters not usually found in this genre.

Wonderful!

Having grown up with the movie, this has been a long time coming to read the book. Wonderful to see the similarities and get to know the characters again. Great story

Good read

Enjoyed it, middle was a little slow but very good overall! I would recommend for sure.

Anne Rice / Simon Vance

What a great listen. I enjoy it every time and Simon Vance makes the dead come to life. Download it you won't be sorry.

A modern classic

If you like poetry you will enjoy the long descriptive tediousness of Louis feelings, but the narrator makes it worth with his phenomenal performance for Claudia who really steals this story.

wonderful!

amazing story and the narration really brings it to life. this novel is such a classic

just love it!

I read the book in the 80s. I saw the movie in the 90s. Now I've listened to the audio productions twice in the last 3 months. So yeah. I'm pretty sure I just love it! I love the story. I can never tire of Louis, and Mr. Vance, with his voice(s), accents, and cadence are the perfect recipe for delight. Thank you Ms. Rice from a long fan and Mr. Vance has a new member in his following. xx