Interview with the Vampire

By: Anne Rice

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

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)

The best story, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Couldn't stop listening... only stopped when I had to. I like it more than The Witching Hour which was great. I felt completely transported to the time and place, the setting, without the author using lengthy descriptions; the voice and accent of the narrator helped a great deal.I loved that every word was used expertly, none used as unnecessary page fillers, like Stephen does.
Only one thing I didn't love. I thought the voice of Louis should've sounded younger, since he died in his early twenties. Also, if the narrator used different voices (more distinguishable between characters), the immersion would've been greater.
Overall amazing talent from Ann Rice.

Must read for any Vampire fan

A must read for anyone interested in Vampire canon. About a vampire from New Orleans who gives an interview about his life to a young man in San Francisco. He recounts his tale of how he meets Lestat who turns him. Lestat then turns a little girl to be their vampire child. I think the story of Claudia is the most interesting part the book offers. What does it mean to live eternally, but forever stuck in the body of a little girl? What does it mean for that little girl to be a monster with a desire to murder innocent people?

The book also explores ideas of morality, forgiveness, betrayal, revenge, God, who are vampires, are they demons, are they children of Satan, or are they children of God?

I miss frank Muller's version!

I read this for the first time back in the 1980s and was living in SF at the time. I ate it up then, and still love the story today. Such fantasy and thrill! Enjoy this Rice classic, we were lucky to have her. My favorite is Queen of the Damned.

One of the best Vampire stories ever told

I love it. I’ve wanted to read this forever and I’m so glad I now know the real story.

My heart

I could feel his passions and his love the words could not have been more rich and full bodied!

Louis, such a tormented damned soul forever

The narrator was perfect, an older voice so powerful to play the role of a seasoned vampire.

There were parts of the story that dragged on into great details and it felt like the story was slow in the beginning building up the characters. And the main character is always in turmoil so miserable. Enough already were my continuous thoughts.

Part 3 & Part 4 are better, it gets more interesting as they go to Paris and the climax at the theater was amazing and kept me enthralled in the story.

For the decade the book was written in, I think she was ahead of her time for the style and the way she portrays the charters.

I’m not in love with the ending, it does set you up for the next book, possibly coming back for more but I’m on the fence with diving into the series. 13 books in the vampire chronicles is quite a commitment for me. To each their own. I’m glad I listened to it, I don’t feel like I wasted my time.

Best vampire book ever written 🖤🦇

This is my all time favorite book, and this is the third time I read it! Even though sometimes I wish I could forget everything I've read so I could read it again as if it were the first time, I'm always amazed at how impressed I get each time I read this masterpiece 🖤🦇 Gosh

Absolutely Beautiful

Anne Rice writes with a depth of emotion and passion which may never be reproduced Heart-wrenchingly beautiful, Interview with the vampire is composed of the joy, sadness, and thrill of life and death, and Simon Vance does an absolutely wonderful job. If it were possible I'd give this book a 10/5.

Interview With The Vampire: 10/10 Perfection!

10 out of 10! 10 out of mfing 10!!! I've never rated a book this high, but I just finished Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice, and it was absolute perfection. The movie Interview With The Vampire has been one of my favorites since I first saw it and is easily my favorite vampire movie. Season 1 of the show on AMC+ has been fantastic as well. It's been really interesting to see the creative changes that the movie and the show took to tell the best story they could, given their mediums and the time when they were created. I can legitimately say I love all three versions. With this book, Anne Rice put on a master class in describing everything from settings to characters' looks, speech, and emotions—both those seen by other characters and those hidden. If you like the movie, the show, vampires, or supernatural stories, I highly recommend this one.

Anne Rice !!!!!!

I discovered Anne Rice in 1993. Loved the movie. Now the Audible was so well done. Great voice, wonderful story from Anne.