A Love Letter to Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire
“‘I see…’ said the vampire”.
The opening line of a work that forever revolutionized vampire literature. Two simple, yet powerful words, uttered by a character whose voice had been previously silenced. There is no need for introductions - the vampire opens a tale that is entirely his own.
When Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976, something in vampire fiction was about to change forever. Until then, vampires in literature and cinema were mere scapegoats of human anxieties: creatures of the night that had to be feared, hunted, and finally destroyed. Most of all they were glimpsed through the eyes of others.
By framing the novel as an interview - itself a compelling innovation within the genre - Anne Rice gave the vampire a voice and, along with it, space to tell his own story. As the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac recounts his immortal tale to the young journalist Daniel Molloy, the novel gradually shifts into an intimate first-person narrative. Through Louis’s ethereal voice, the reader is invited into the mind, memory, and soul of the vampire. A subtle shift in perspective that allows a whole new array of possibilities: in Rice’s world, vampires become philosophers, wanderers, Romantics at heart. They are complex beings moving with the night and longing for knowledge and art. It is indeed a philosophical and spiritual search that lies at the heart of this tale - a leitmotif that will echo through all of Rice’s work.
Make it stand out
Louis’s suffering in Interview with the Vampire is also a nod to Dracula’s Daughter (1936) and Countess Marya Zaleska, suffering a condition by which she can’t escape. Yet there is always novelty in Rice’s work and all the motifs of previous literature and movies are molded into something beautifully new.
Perhaps Rice’s grandeur ultimately lies in her ability to see the vampire as a metaphor for the other. In Audrey Niffenegger’s words: ”all of Rice’s work is concerned with outsiders and their place in the world”. Rice stretches the symbolic force of the vampire to its very limits by also tackling the question of time and mortality itself. Her vampires are both ancient and modern: they have seen the world change, yet they have learnt to adapt; they carry the burden of centuries, but they speak the language of their age. And, ultimately, they have learnt to love across centuries.
Yet despite the supernatural framework at the core of the genre, Rice’s vampires are marked by emotions that remain recognizably, painfully human. They feel, grieve and love intensely. And this is what makes them so compelling. Because in the end, to put it in Rice’s words, supernatural fiction “does not work unless it's about us”.
So back in 1976, what Interview with the Vampire brought to life was a paradigm shift that was there to stay, leaving an immortal mark on vampire literature and beyond. And it all started one night, in a small room on Divisadero Street, with a journalist, a recorder and the vampire Louis calmly uttering the words: “Don’t be afraid. Just start the tape”.
