Posted on 11/03/2005 2:10:38 PM PST by BlackVeil
Leaving vampires and witches behind, author centers novels – and new life in La Jolla – around Christ
She breathed life into vampires and witches with blood-curdling passion and dabbled in soft-porn with an erotic series about Sleeping Beauty. Now, Anne Rice is fixated on the boy Jesus.
Her new book, "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt," was released this week, taking readers into a fictional account of the young Messiah, capturing the junior years that are conspicuously absent from the Gospels.
She begins when he is 7 and follows him for the next year, from Alexandria, where her novel says his family fled after his birth in Bethlehem, to Nazareth, the town where he grew up.
After 26 books, under her name and two pseudonyms, the queen of the damned and debauchery has been born again.
She only wants to write about Jesus, and "Christ the Lord," written in the first person as if he himself is narrating the story, is just the beginning.
"It's definitely going to be three or four books," says Rice, sitting beside a warming fire in her living room overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
There is so much that's new about Rice, who turned 64 last month, that it's difficult to know where to begin.
She's in a new home – relocating from Louisiana to La Jolla, to an 11,000-square-foot, three-story, $8 million villa that she's named "Paradise West." She moved months before Hurricane Katrina, though she is in mourning over the devastation of her longtime homeland. "I'm frankly dreading seeing the place," says Rice, who carries a plea for donations on her Web site, annerice.com.
She has a new, trim and healthy look, shedding dozens of pounds via gastric bypass surgery and a daily regimen of exercise and careful diet.
And she has a renewed faith, after returning to her Catholic roots and immersing herself into everything from the apocryphal "Infancy Gospel of Thomas" to Rick Warren's evangelical self-help journal, "The Purpose-Driven Life."
This from a woman who once confessed she feared that life was meaningless.
It was her conversion that made her change her mind.
"Once you really convert, if you really are meaning this, then I think you can perceive the whole world as permeated by his divine providence," she says. "God is as much with the person who drowns in a boating accident as he is with the person who is saved."
She is wearing a black dress, comfortable shoes and a white blouse with ruffles. Her graying hair is straight and well-combed. The look is part Victorian, part nun. Her voice is soft and steady as she continues to talk about God's omnipresence.
"I think once you see that, it can be tremendously comforting. You cross a barrier when you see that. For me, I don't think there's any going back."
She used to give tours of her Greek Revival manor in New Orleans' Garden District (which appears to have survived the hurricanes). She also wrote about it in her books. But that has changed, too.
Her La Jolla home is tucked away on a quiet hillside street, where there is no parking on either side. The only outside activity is a gardening crew. Inside, her live-in assistants slip from room to room discreetly while a cook in the kitchen quietly goes about her chores.
"This house is private," says Rice. "We're looking for a more peaceful life here, a more secluded life."
Rice left the Catholic Church when she was 18. Two years later, she married a devout atheist, an artist named Stan Rice. They lost a young daughter to leukemia and raised a son.
Her first book, "Interview With the Vampire," came out in 1978, introducing an eager throng of readers to Lestat, a powerful vampire who was viewed by fans as being both sympathetic and seductive. The novel was hailed as a masterpiece and made into a movie.
Her fate as a writer seemed sealed: There were nine books in the Vampire Chronicles, along with an accompanying series of novels about the Mayfair family of witches and other assorted subjects that shared a common bond of eeriness.
She says "Christ the Lord" is not penance for her past works, which includes a book in which Lestat drinks the blood of Jesus. She defends her stories, saying they were about evil and the quest for goodness.
"The morality of my books is very clear, that killing is wrong, that violence is wrong, that being a vampire is a wretched, miserable existence without God."
Her own return to the Catholic Church in 1998 was more a gradual journey than a single epiphany. "I wanted to go back. I wanted to be in Mass. I wanted to hear Mass. I was longing for it like someone longing for a whole lost world."
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When she began attending Mass again, her devotion took on an orthodoxy. She even convinced her husband to remarry her in the church. Stan Rice died of brain cancer in 2002, after 41 years of marriage. That year, she also had begun writing "Christ the Lord."
She was devastated by his death. In 2004, she left New Orleans for a gated, suburban community in nearby Jefferson Parish. Her departure from the city drew headlines. She had come to symbolize the haunted ambience of New Orleans, but now the first lady of the underworld was withdrawing. In interviews in late 2003 and early 2004, she also announced that the vampire books had run their course (her last book, "Blood Canticle" in 2003, brought together the worlds of vampires and witches).
Suburbia was home for only a year. This past March, she came here, to a tony beach community she discovered during a book signing at Warwick's, a La Jolla fixture. She loves the weather and being able to walk to things. She also loves being closer to her 27-year-old son, Christopher, who lives in West Hollywood.
One of the villa's six bedrooms is reserved for Christopher, who visits frequently. Another is set aside for visitors, including her extended family, who come for spring and Christmas reunions. There's a lap pool outside for her guests. There are also 10 bathrooms and a four-car garage (for now, it's mostly occupied with books and boxes, while the gray Mercedes sits out in the driveway).
Her third-floor bedroom gives the feel of a studio apartment. There's a 60-inch, flat-screen television over the fireplace, a sitting area and a huge bathroom complete with a salon chair for a hairstylist who makes house calls. There's also a computer, a place to do her writing and a balcony framed in bougainvillea with a picture-postcard horizon of the sea.
"The climate is like heaven," she says. "It really is."
She goes to Mass at Mary, Star of the Sea, where she slips in and out. Her cover may have been blown, however. Last week, she had a copy of "Christ the Lord" delivered to the church's pastor, Monsignor Eamonn Lyng.
Rice left Paradise West on Saturday for her book tour. But when she's home, her days begin early, about 3:30 a.m., when she wakes and says the Rosary for about a half-hour. Then she gets up, rides her bicycle and heads for her computer.
"I eat four small meals a day, and they're all lamb and vegetables," she says. She guards her health carefully. She has type 1 diabetes, takes insulin daily and has battled obesity, ballooning to more than 250 pounds before she underwent gastric bypass surgery two years ago.
She's a voracious reader (currently, she's preoccupied with the Crusades) and has thousands of books, many of them arranged in cases in hallways and rooms. The walls and corridors are decorated with her husband's vivid paintings and an eclectic collection of religious artwork and icons.
She rarely goes out at night. "The last time I went out was to see Elton John when he was here (in May) because he's doing a musical about the vampire Lestat, and I wanted to talk with him about it. It was very unusual for me to be in an auditorium filled with music at 8 o'clock at night, instead of being in my flannel gown upstairs."
Rice became fascinated with trying to figure out how Christianity took hold 2,000 years ago to become the world's largest faith. "I really wanted to know what actually happened in the first century. How did Christianity do this thing in taking over the Roman empire? How did this really shake down?"
Drawing on apocryphal texts that didn't make it into the Bible, early church writings and modern scholarship, she slowly built her own scenario. She also decided to go with the first-person voice, having the boy Jesus do the narrating. "I've always written my most effective books in the first person."
Her orthodoxy heavily influences the story of "Christ the Lord." She follows Catholic teachings that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life. "What interested me was the Jesus of my Catholic faith and the Bible. I wasn't really interested in anything else. So what my path was was to make that real for a reader, to say, 'Listen we call her Mary ever virgin, what was that like?' "
She does some straying. She adopts an alternative theory that James, described in the Bible as the "brother of the Lord," was Jesus' older half-brother, the product of an earlier marriage by Joseph.
She puts the family in Alexandria, though the Bible only says they went to Egypt. "I think the holy family was probably in Alexandria because that's where all the work was," she says. "Plus Alexandria had the largest Jewish community in Egypt. They would have wound up there sooner or later."
She also has him meeting the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria. "I thought Philo's life chronology was right on the money. He would have known about a bright little Jewish boy."
And Jesus was a miracle worker, even when he was 7. The impetus for that came from apocryphal writings, particularly the "Infancy Gospel of Thomas," which describes several boyhood acts of Jesus (the authenticity remains in dispute).
Where Rice probably breaks most from her Catholicism is when it comes to her real-life son, Christopher, who is gay. "As for my son, this novel is dedicated to him. That says it all," she writes in an essay at the end.
The Catholic Church teaches that the practice of homosexuality is a sin; "grave depravity" are the words it uses. Rice couldn't disagree more. "I love my gay brothers and sisters. They are the children of God."
Instead, she likens the debate to one years ago over science and religion. She predicts there will be a similar decision that accepting something new doesn't diminish the authority of Scripture.
"I think we'll see a time when the church opens its doors to homosexuals and accepts them completely as the children of God. I don't think Jesus said one single, solitary syllable about homosexuality. I don't think he did. I can't find it."
As for her own writings about Jesus, she's already at work on the second novel. She won't give details, though her primary thesis will remain the same: that his divinity was being revealed to him even at a young age.
It is an evolving revelation, according to her. "He doesn't know it all yet. He doesn't allow himself to be God fully and completely every minute because he wants to be human, and that's what he's figuring out."
It's important to her that Jesus, by the time he began his ministry at the age of 30, knew who he was. "He signed on for this," she says.
So why wait until he's that old to start?
"My feeling is he waited until he's 30 because he wanted to be a full, mature man who could command authority. Also, he wanted to experience all these different things. He wanted to know them."
What remains to be known is whether Rice's fervent fans, including the cultic, black-robed ones that made Gothic pilgrimages to her New Orleans mansion, will follow her out of the dark side to her religious enlightenment. One morning last week, she read an e-mail from an angry reader who assured her that he would not be in line for her to sign "Christ the Lord."
"That was one e-mail," she adds. "I've received another 10 for that one who've said, 'We are eager to read the book.' "
So having Lestat become Christ wasn't good enough?? Thanks, but I'll pass.
There's nothing Catholic about fake Gospels or Rick Warren.
I wonder if this one will be made into a film, as well.
{{{shudder}}}
Where Rice probably breaks most from her Catholicism is when it comes to her real-life son, Christopher, who is gay. "As for my son, this novel is dedicated to him. That says it all," she writes in an essay at the end.
The Catholic Church teaches that the practice of homosexuality is a sin; "grave depravity" are the words it uses. Rice couldn't disagree more. "I love my gay brothers and sisters. They are the children of God."
So has anyone actually read this book? I got half way through one of her Vampire novels and gave up, not because she was a bad writer but because the subject matter simply didn't interest me.
Plus I didnt want Anne Rice fans talking to me on the train if they saw me with the book.
That is exactly what I did. I like a good novel about the supernatural, but although the prose was fine, the narrative seemed dull and overdone. Still, Anne Rice is an interesting author - as you point out - she has an established fan following.
I wanted to hear Mass. I was longing for it like someone longing for a whole lost world.
That's quite a profound statement. I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps, just perhaps, this is the beginning of a long, gradual process of conversion which may lead her deeper into the adventure of orthodoxy (cf. G. K. Chesterton).
I'll be remembering her in my prayers.
That's not really "straying" as far as I know. I believe that position is a very ancient one and completely permissible for a Catholic to hold.
As for the homosexuality stuff, well, her conversion seems sincere and since we're Catholics we should realize these things take some time to sink in. I remember reverting and for a long while doubting the literal truth of the Resurrection. Ideas are sometime ingrained very deeply--and in her case, having a son with SSAD, it may be especially challenging for her to see past the culture's incessant drumbeat on this issue.
I've never read any of Rice's works, really know next to nothing about her, but she seems to have the right attitude overall--what the Church teaches is what is to be believed. She just maybe needs to completely apply it to all aspects of our life (heaven knows I do). Let's all pray for her and not lose sight of the fact that there is great rejoicing in heaven that another prodigal has come home.
I've never seen any theological objection to the possibility that the "brethren" of Jesus could be children of St. Joseph. However, to call those men "half-brothers" of Jesus implies that Jesus was the biological son of Joseph, which is not true. "Step-brothers" would be correct. Maybe it's an error on the part of the article's author.
The Catholic Church teaches that the practice of homosexuality is a sin; "grave depravity" are the words it uses. Rice couldn't disagree more. "I love my gay brothers and sisters. They are the children of God."
Instead, she likens the debate to one years ago over science and religion. She predicts there will be a similar decision that accepting something new doesn't diminish the authority of Scripture.
"I think we'll see a time when the church opens its doors to homosexuals and accepts them completely as the children of God. I don't think Jesus said one single, solitary syllable about homosexuality. I don't think he did. I can't find it."
No surprise there. I read Lestat years ago, good writing but I didn't manage to work up any cultic attitudes over it. I have long maintained that Vampires are fiction's representation of homosexuals and the transformation (mainly by Ms. Rice) of vampires from horrible undead creeps into romantic misunderstood artistic pariahs has completely echoed the public sentiment towards them.
As for Ms. Rice; it is not the Church, nor the Faith, nor the Christian ethos that needs reforming: it is you. If you missed THAT in the Gospels, then you need to open your heart to what God desires, not what you desire God to be.
For what to sink in? That to be a real Catholic she needs to condemn and shun her child?
having a son with SSAD
SSAD? Forgive me, but I've never heard of that.
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