Interview with the Vampire

 

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (1976) 346 Pages

This novel is a narration by Louis, to an interviewer in near modern-day, as he tells the story of his life as a vampire. He was once a plantation owner in 1791 in Louisiana. He managed a large swath of land until he stumbled home drunk one night and was turned into a vampire by Lestat, a much older, ruthless, cold vampire. Most of the story goes into Louis' struggle with his morality and how in being a vampire, its difficult for him to continue to take a life. Louis and Lestat often fight and argue, because Lestat takes pleasure in hunting human victims for sport and Louis is often disgusted by this. They are living in New Orleans when Louis happens upon a little girl cowering next to her deceased mother. After arguing with Lestat once again about the taking of human life, Louis happens upon the girl and is overcome with a sense of need, and ends up taking her blood and almost killing her. Lestat finds them and manically starts laughing, proving his point that vampires are inherently killers. Later the next week, Lestat takes the girl from her sick bed and wants Louis to finish the job. Instead of killing her, Lestat ends up turning her into a vampire, a forever child. Claudia "grows up" with Louis as her father and partner. She is forever a small child but after many years she is mature enough to begin questioning her origin. Claudia poisons Lestat and although he doesn't fully die and comes back for them, they set fire to the house and escape to leave on a boat for Europe. Claudia and Louis travel across Europe in search for other vampires. What they find is a primitive form of vampire-like monster, which cannot be reasoned with and they kill it. Once they get to Paris, they finally find a host of other vampires. Led by Armand, the Theatre des Vampires is a group of vampires who live in a theater and put on plays which they pretend to be actors playing vampires. Armand is infatuated with Louis and Claudia becomes convinced he is trying to pry them apart. Claudia finds a woman who she wants Louis to turn, in order to be her caretaker if Louis is to leave her for Armand. Louis agrees to turn her, and when he does they are immediately captured by Armand's cohort. It is a grave crime to attempt or commit murder of another vampire, and they have caught on that Lestat was allegedly murdered by Claudia. Claudia and her new vampire caregiver are burned alive. This forever changes Louis and he completely loses his joy in life. He wanders the globe with Armand, with little happiness.