Anne Rice Kisses Career Goodbye

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Vampire specialist Anne Rice has given up writing about immortals who rise from the dead -- or at least the bloodsucking, sleeping-in-a-coffin types. Her next book -- and all forthcoming ones -- will be devoted to writing about the life and times of Jesus Christ, told in the first person. After a medical scare left her near death, Rice returned to the Catholic Church and gave up her Goth-novel ways. "I promised that from now on I would write only for the Lord," Rice told Newsweek in an interview. She calls Jesus "the ultimate supernatural hero" in the book's afterword: "The ultimate immortal of them all." href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/358672p-305558c.html">(New York Daily News)/a>
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/358672p-305558c.html

― J (Jay), Monday, 24 October 2005 19:48 (twenty years ago)

Sorry, f*ked the HTML. But the point stands, right?

― J (Jay), Monday, 24 October 2005 19:49 (twenty years ago)

Thread title should read: Anne Rice Starts Making Real Bank

― sexyDancer (sexyDancer), Monday, 24 October 2005 19:55 (twenty years ago)

Anne Rice: The Lost Juggalo

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Monday, 24 October 2005 19:55 (twenty years ago)

man im gonna be so bummed if this happens to deicide

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 24 October 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

Christ is sort of undead too, though.

― andy --, Monday, 24 October 2005 19:58 (twenty years ago)

AWESOME

― Special Agent Dale Koopa (orion), Monday, 24 October 2005 19:58 (twenty years ago)

Also keep an eye out for A.N. Roquelaure's upcoming book, "Spanked Behind".

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 24 October 2005 19:59 (twenty years ago)

xpost, damn you all...

Cagey genius. She knows a market when she sees one. Stay tuned for HOTT HOTT HOTT flagellation scenes and a very modern twist on the relationship between Jesus and Peter.

- Upon this rock I will build my church.
- And the steeple will be... mmm... so very tall... and proud...

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:00 (twenty years ago)

Vampire Jesus

― M. V. (M.V.), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:01 (twenty years ago)

No no, we drink Jesus's blood. He's like a dyslexic vampire.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:05 (twenty years ago)

"I promised that from now on I would write only for the Lord," Rice told Newsweek in an interview.

So she's going to be Jesus' private soft-core fetish novelist? Sweet.

― J (Jay), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:06 (twenty years ago)

Savior's Punishment

― I do feel guilty for getting any perverse amusement out of it (Rock Hardy), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:07 (twenty years ago)

see if she actually took that route it'd be great.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:07 (twenty years ago)

I admit I'm kinda bemused that nobody takes the idea of her re-embrace of Catholicism seriously.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:07 (twenty years ago)

man im gonna be so bummed if this happens to deicide

Glenn will have to go everywhere standing on his head

― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:07 (twenty years ago)

Having barely made it thru the silly goth tedium of "Interview with the Vampire", I have no stake in whether she has a career or not.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:12 (twenty years ago)

I've never met a goth who wasn't raised Catholic or went to Catholic school so this makes perfect sense to me.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:17 (twenty years ago)

See, Jesus wants his blood back, and he's gonna get it...one Christian at a time

― Morley Timmons (Donna Brown), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:18 (twenty years ago)

Christian Goth

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:20 (twenty years ago)

I admit I'm kinda bemused that nobody takes the idea of her re-embrace of Catholicism seriously.

I take it at least as seriously as anything else Anne Rice has ever done. And it makes total sense. They've got all the best churches, and even if Mel did the Jesus S&M thing first there's still plenty of room for explication. Plus all those saints and martyrs who had their heads and breasts and whatever cut off.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:20 (twenty years ago)

well duh, xtians invented goth.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:25 (twenty years ago)

I thought Goths invented goth.

― antexit (antexit), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:28 (twenty years ago)

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:35 (twenty years ago)

haha - Morbs said "stake"

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:39 (twenty years ago)

I admit I'm kinda bemused that nobody takes the idea of her re-embrace of Catholicism seriously.

G-Moth OTM. It's Anne Rice - what's to take seriously other than her pernicious influence on the prose of generation or two of livejournalists?

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:41 (twenty years ago)

What impresses me most about Anne Rice is that she managed to get herself interviewed by Newsweek in 2005.

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:44 (twenty years ago)

If I understand it right, she's going to be writing about the apocypha or something anyway. So she'll probably piss a whole lotta bible bashers off, which could be entertaining. Dan Brown she won't be, I'm sure.

I dont get the Rice thing. I dont think Ive ever read anything of hers.

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:48 (twenty years ago)

I read "Interview." It was pretty awful. Making it about Jesus would probably not have improved it.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:53 (twenty years ago)

If it weren't for Poppy Z Brite, she would be the cheesiest gothic writer on the planet, which is quite an achievement.

― moley, Monday, 24 October 2005 20:53 (twenty years ago)

I thought Goths invented goth.

I thought that 'goth' as an epithet was first used in the 18th Century by classicists repudiating the medieval architectural heritage of England and France.

― M. White (Miguelito), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:57 (twenty years ago)

If it weren't for Poppy Z Brite, she would be the cheesiest gothic writer on the planet, which is quite an achievement.

Not while Storm Constantine exists.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:57 (twenty years ago)

I admit I'm kinda bemused that nobody takes the idea of her re-embrace of Catholicism seriously.

Goth, Catholicism, what's the difference? Well, Catholicism is usually not so cheesy, I'm kind of disturbed by this, because I always figured it was Protestants who got all the awful pop culture stuff..

Plus all those saints and martyrs who had their heads and breasts and whatever cut off.

St. Agatha: According to variations of her legend, having rejected the amorous advances of a Roman prefect, she was persecuted by him for her Christian faith. Among the tortures she underwent was the cutting off of her breasts. She is therefore often depicted iconographically carrying her excised breasts on a platter.

― dar1a g (daria g), Monday, 24 October 2005 20:58 (twenty years ago)

Ha! I just read a poppy z brite story (set in New Orleans) and it was really, really bad. I thought I just didn't get it.

― andy --, Monday, 24 October 2005 21:02 (twenty years ago)

Gotheteria is such a broad pallete we may need to narrow our discussion to gothic lit - in which case we're looking at the likes of Ms Radcliffe, Lewis, and (the maginificent) Beckford.

Why are you on this thread Trayce? You're not a goth.

― moley, Monday, 24 October 2005 21:03 (twenty years ago)

Here's a great little info source:

http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/~dougt/gothic.htm

― moley, Monday, 24 October 2005 21:04 (twenty years ago)

That's "Gothic," I think, M. White. The Goths were a Germanic people who invaded the Roman empire in the third or fourth century. (xp)

― antexit (antexit), Monday, 24 October 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

Goths are watching us..
goths are watching us..
goths are watching us..

from a distance.

― dar1a g (daria g), Monday, 24 October 2005 21:07 (twenty years ago)

Sure antexit, but 'Goths' used to describe the black clad, post punk, youth subculture arose surely from a conflation with Gothic literature, right?

― M. White (Miguelito), Monday, 24 October 2005 21:16 (twenty years ago)

the narrator of this book is jesus ... this should send the conservative christians into freak out mode.

"it's a coming of age story about jesus wrecking his dad's donkey."

seriously tho... she dips into pseudo apocryphal, etc etc stuff... if she was looking for a way to make the people that are already weirded out by her vampire novels even more uncomfortable, she's officially BRILLIANT.

she'll probably go the divinci code and last temptation of christ route and make quite a lot of money while creeping out fundies.

should be amusing,
m.

― msp (mspa), Monday, 24 October 2005 21:17 (twenty years ago)

Ahaha shutup moley ;P

I really havent ever read Rice or anyone like that. Blergh, vampire pr0n? Gimme a break.

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 24 October 2005 21:18 (twenty years ago)

The growth of the new genre of gothic science fiction must surely bear fruit in a scenario featuring alien goths. Presumably, they would not have had a Catholic childhood...?

― moley, Monday, 24 October 2005 21:22 (twenty years ago)

because I always figured it was Protestants who got all the awful pop culture stuff..

are you kidding? you ever been in a tienda loaded with Mary of Guadalupe stuff?

― kingfish neopolitan sundae (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 24 October 2005 21:24 (twenty years ago)

I think Goths take more from Hammer films than Poe.

― andy --, Monday, 24 October 2005 21:49 (twenty years ago)

hahaha my friends rented "interview with the vampire" as a joke for sick me today

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 24 October 2005 22:35 (twenty years ago)

Rudolph Bell's 1985 book Holy Anorexia, on Italian saints, is especially rewarding for connoisseurs of the spiritually lurid. St Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi lay naked on thorns. Catherine of Siena drank pus from a cancerous sore. One confessor ordered Veronica Giuliani to kneel while a novice of the order kicked her in the mouth. Another ordered her to clean the walls and floor of her cell with her tongue; but even he thought it was going too far when she swallowed the spiders and their webs.

Scourges, chains and hair-shirts were the must-have accessories in these women's lives. St Margaret of Cortona bought herself a razor and was narrowly dissuaded from slicing through her nostrils and upper lip. St Angela of Foligno drank water contaminated by the putrefying flesh of a leper. And what St Francesca Romana did, I find I am not able to write down.

From:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,11812,1161633,00.html

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Monday, 24 October 2005 23:07 (twenty years ago)

I'll get right on that St Francesca Romana thing.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Monday, 24 October 2005 23:11 (twenty years ago)

i have a hardback review copy, think it'd fetch $ on ebay?

― anonkl, Monday, 24 October 2005 23:17 (twenty years ago)

Some of the stories about hermits in the desert are also pretty nasty, those are worth checking out.

― dar1a g (daria g), Monday, 24 October 2005 23:19 (twenty years ago)

I'll get right on that St Francesca Romana thing.

Yeah, now I'm intrigued.

― So so Krispie (Ex Leon), Monday, 24 October 2005 23:24 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 6 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

As anyone knows, most goth girls are, indeed, but ALL goth Queens are Jewish and hence many of the problems that beset us all.

― Ian Grey (Ian_G), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 00:06 (twenty years ago)

According to Rudolph Bell's book, wich I have just consulted as I am at work at a bookstore, while she was married she would burn her vagina with hot oil or wax before sex, just in case she might have enjoyed it.

― Annabelle Lennox (Arachne), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 00:08 (twenty years ago)

Hah! Thank you Annabelle!
I bet that was the only way she COULD enjoy it.
Funny that the reviewer was so squeamish about that but had no qualms at all about "Catherine of Siena drank pus from a cancerous sore."

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 00:12 (twenty years ago)

STORM CONSTANTINE

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 00:21 (twenty years ago)

WARNING DO NOT READ IF SQEAMISH
"while dressing the cancerous breast sores of a woman she was attending, Catherine felt repulsed at the horrid odor of the suppuration. Determined to overcome all bodily sensations, she carefully gathered the pus into a ladle and drank it all.That evening she envisioned Jesus inviting her to drink the blood flowing from his pierced side."
Vampire Nun.

― Annabelle Lennox (Arachne), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 00:29 (twenty years ago)

A ladle!

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 00:31 (twenty years ago)

Dead Alive custard scene!

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 00:32 (twenty years ago)

I read quite a few of the Rice vampire books when I was younger, and I have a distinct memory of the hero Lestat somehow ending up watching Jesus's procession towards Calvary, which ends in him sucking Jesus's blood (but not unto death).

I think I actually stopped reading them b/c the relationship the books entertained toward Christianity was slowly morphing from deep ambivalence into uncomfortable fervour, and even 12-yr-old me found that icky.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 01:44 (twenty years ago)

yeah, i read all of her books from the ages of 12-15. just a passing obsession with immortality, violence and little more. you are right Tim, the book was Memnoch the Devil if i remember correctly. i doubt this new book will sell tho. still, i do feel bad for her, new orleans was her city, she must be slightly crazed to have lost it.

― JD from CDepot, Tuesday, 25 October 2005 03:27 (twenty years ago)

CHRISTIAN ZOMBIE VAMPIRE!

― Baaderonixx and the hedonistic gluttons (baaderonixx), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 07:08 (twenty years ago)

According to Hilary Mantel - who wrote that Guardian article linked above too - she became the patron saint of bakers, because the breasts on the platter often looked rather like a pair on buns.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 10:09 (twenty years ago)

Pls tell me that wasnt a typo FP :D

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 10:15 (twenty years ago)

Hah. Pair of buns, I should have said.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 10:25 (twenty years ago)

I thought you guys meant her:
http://www.fortunecity.com/olympia/hanley/37/anneka.jpg

― Come Back Johnny B (Johnney B), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 10:32 (twenty years ago)

Having barely made it thru the silly goth tedium of "Interview with the Vampire", I have no stake in whether she has a career or not.

hehe You said stake.

― nathalie, a bum like you (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 12:17 (twenty years ago)

new orleans was her city

No it isn't. Anne Rice spent her whole career pushing the inane Goth New Orleans bit, paying no attention to the city itself. Also, her houses are hideous. The big one on First and Chestnut is, like, deep purple.

Poppy Z Brite, to her credit, quit writing Goth-novels and now writes amusing gay romances about New Orleans chefs. She's got a lot of love for real New Orleans stuff, like cheap beer and eating really well and getting drunk in Audubon Park. God I miss NO.

Anne Rice's new Left Behind thing is a much cannier move than I'd thought her capable of.

― adam (adam), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 12:43 (twenty years ago)

Ethiopian [ = black] men

I'm still giggling at this.

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 12:53 (twenty years ago)

If the Happy Jesus People embrace her new book, then she's opened up a whole new vein to exploit.

― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 18:28 (twenty years ago)

Lestat!

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Saturday, 5 November 2005 21:57 (twenty years ago)

three weeks pass...

aaaaaaaand the reviews are in!

― kingfish hobo juckie (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 30 November 2005 16:07 (twenty years ago)

I could use some lamb and lentil stew right about now.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Wednesday, 30 November 2005 22:59 (twenty years ago)

I've often thought someone should make a totally secular film about Jesus as a historical figure, showing him mainly as a charismatic dissenter with no supernatural son-of-god stuff.

― chap who would dare to tell uninteresting celeb spotting stories (chap), Wednesday, 30 November 2005 23:06 (twenty years ago)

For extra controversy points: the opening scene would be Joseph and Mary concieving Jesus, and he'd be very Arabic looking (maybe played by the guy from Lost).

― chap who would dare to tell uninteresting celeb spotting stories (chap), Wednesday, 30 November 2005 23:13 (twenty years ago)

Erm chap, wouldn't Mary be committing adultery with someone else other than Joseph, who is gay?

― moley (moley), Thursday, 1 December 2005 02:48 (twenty years ago)

I've often thought someone should make a totally secular film about Jesus as a historical figure, showing him mainly as a charismatic dissenter with no supernatural son-of-god stuff.

like the way scorsese did?

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 1 December 2005 18:36 (twenty years ago)

I am not certain that Scorcese's movie can be categorized as "totally secular," Kazantzakis's own agnosticism notwith. In fact, I'm pretty certain it can't, and shouldn't.

― monkeybutler, Thursday, 1 December 2005 19:54 (twenty years ago)

why, because scorsese's catholic? despite that, last temptation is pretty much "a totally secular film about Jesus as a historical figure, showing him mainly as a charismatic dissenter with no supernatural son-of-god stuff," imo. most of the god stuff is presented as hallucinatory, not supernatural.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:42 (twenty years ago)

Well, his motivation in making the movie wasn't secular, in any case, if we can divorce directorial intent from ultimate result.

― monkeybutler, Thursday, 1 December 2005 20:50 (twenty years ago)

four years pass...

Anne Rice Kisses Christianity Goodbye

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 29 July 2010 22:41 (fifteen years ago)

More details here:

http://www.queerty.com/anne-rice-ditches-christianity-because-have-you-heard-its-so-anti-gay-20100729/

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 29 July 2010 22:41 (fifteen years ago)

Anne Rice (born Howard Allen O'Brien on October 4, 1941) is a best-selling American author of gothic, erotic, and religious-themed books..

― still they got me like beezus (Pillbox), Thursday, 29 July 2010 23:05 (fifteen years ago)

"christianity"... score one for the fundamentalists i guess

― grime come true (tremendoid), Thursday, 29 July 2010 23:32 (fifteen years ago)

hasn't she been over and back to christianity a few times?

someone going back to christianity- one of the strangest occurrences I can think of in terms of personal life choices/paths

― "It's far from 'lol' you were reared, boy" (darraghmac), Thursday, 29 July 2010 23:40 (fifteen years ago)

five years pass...

was suddenly filled with the urge to re-read all of these (well I only read the first three and the witching hour) after seeing that a new movie is in the works. i can't believe how many other books she's milked out of this series. are any of them any good at all?

― akm, Thursday, 5 May 2016 04:45 (ten years ago)

five years pass...

Gothic novelist Anne Rice has died due to complications from a stroke. Rice's son Christopher Rice announced her death on her Facebook page and his Twitter page. Rice was widely known for her bestselling novel “Interview with the Vampire.” https://t.co/zAkLBxawoM
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 12, 2021

And now she’s dead.

I have a complicated relationship with her work and her - TVC are guilty pleasures and I’ve owned and read most of them at some point or another. She was infamous on the early internet for actively going after people for doing fic of her work, but she calmed down on that after a while. She was, let’s be honest, a deeply weird person. She went after some restaurant in New Orleans by posting a billboard at them in the voice of Lestat (!), she went full Catholic and then reversed sharply (I think after her son came out?) Overall a deeply strange but fascinating person.

― mardheamac (gyac), Sunday, 12 December 2021 14:48 (four years ago)

her eccentricities and over-production were distracting, but few fiction writers have changed their genre as much as she changed horror

― Brad C., Sunday, 12 December 2021 15:18 (four years ago)

Not just horror, she changed the culture. It’s impossible to imagine our modern ideas of Goth culture — especially its embedded queerness — without her. It’s selling her short to say that without her there’s no Ryan Murphy, e.g., but it’s still true. I only read Interview, which I loved as a teen, and when I tried other books I couldn’t make it thru the Baroque prose. But she was a major force, particularly for a few generations of marginalized teens. R.I.P.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Sunday, 12 December 2021 16:28 (four years ago)

Just a blip in her epic career, but I do think a lot about how Anne Rice wrote an erotic BDSM romance and somehow it got adapted into a Garry Marshall buddy cop movie. RIP to the vampire queen pic.twitter.com/izZLsTwSHD
— Alison Willmore (@alisonwillmore) December 12, 2021

― ... (Eazy), Sunday, 12 December 2021 17:33 (four years ago)

ngl that was the first thing I thought about upon hearing this news

― coombination gazza hut & scampo bell (wins), Sunday, 12 December 2021 17:40 (four years ago)

I once heard a story of one of Garry Marshall’s friends rejoicing in the schadenfreude of that film’s flop.

― Raw Like Siouxsie (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 12 December 2021 18:08 (four years ago)

Just as a weird mirror to Rice's conversion that kicked off this thread, here's a bishop in Spain who quit his job so he could marry an author of Satanic erotica.

https://www.bbc.com/news/58486790

― recovering internet addict/shitposter (viborg), Sunday, 12 December 2021 18:42 (four years ago)

this was so weird. yesterday my wife said "I really want to go to New Orleans" and I said "why, do you want to go see Anne Rice" and then four hours her son posted this.

Said above in the thread but the first three Vampire novels and Witching Hour are something else. I actually did pop open Interview on the kindle last night and got sucked in immediately all over again.

― akm, Sunday, 12 December 2021 20:22 (four years ago)

I think she had left New Orleans some time ago?

― change display name (Jordan), Sunday, 12 December 2021 20:39 (four years ago)

As I just posted elsewhere, my introduction to Anne Rice via hearing this in 11th grade:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGBFAAngUE4

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 12 December 2021 20:42 (four years ago)

Yeah, reportedly she moved to La Jolla after Katrina, loved the weather, later said it was too cold, moved to Rancho Mirage, to be closer to her son, who lives in LA---all according to her wiki bio, which is quite a read---at least for me, who didn't know much about Rice, and never read her, but maybe I will now.

― dow, Sunday, 12 December 2021 21:10 (four years ago)

i've heard that the idea of interviewing a vampire was ripped off of a tv special that aired a year earlier. "night hunter" or something like that.

― adam t. (abanana), Sunday, 12 December 2021 22:01 (four years ago)

But did the night hunter feature vampires that can’t have sex because all their bodily fluids drain out of them and therefore they can’t get it up? I doubt it.

― mardheamac (gyac), Sunday, 12 December 2021 22:28 (four years ago)

nine months pass...

I will watch this

A new trailer for ‘Interview with the Vampire’ has been released. pic.twitter.com/ZOfzmhTxGg
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) September 9, 2022

― barry sito (gyac), Friday, 23 September 2022 19:57 (three years ago)

got sucked in immediately

I see what you did there

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 23 September 2022 20:07 (three years ago)

yeah fingers crossed this is good though i'm sure they'll blow something at some point. they're also doing the Mayfair Witches; I remember loving the Witching Hour but hating Lasher; and my interest in Rice books basically died after that, but no denying how great Interview, Lestat, and Witching Hour are.

― akm, Saturday, 24 September 2022 04:46 (three years ago)

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