I can’t remember who recommended Anne Rice’s vampire series to me when I was a teenager, but I quickly fell in love. I quickly moved on to her other books.
I loved how engrossing they were and appreciated that they were long, so I could stay in those worlds for a long time.
I also loved that so many were set in New Orleans. My stepfather had a time share there–one week a year, it was my home.
In my early attempt to read everything she’d written, I picked up Sleeping Beauty, only to discover S&M. It wasn’t my thing, but my mom and aunt thought it was hilarious that I’d accidentally read porn.
It wasn’t only the Vampire series, though. The Mayfair witches books weaved their spell. The two books I remember most, all these years later, though, are stand-alone: The Feast of All Saints, about free blacks in antebellum New Orleans, and Cry to Heaven, about the castrati in Italy. They’re the books I still own, the ones that survived all the purges and the moves.
I haven’t read an Anne Rice book in a long time. I tried a late entry in the Vampire series a few years ago, and while it felt . . . familiar, it wasn’t anything I wanted to sink my teeth into.
But I will always remember those early days with her books. Once, I was reading Cry to Heaven on a beach. When my boyfriend tried to ask me about lunch, coming back to reality was a struggle–I had to blink several times, to reassure myself I was in fact in Florida and not in Italy. I said we could do whatever my boyfriend wanted, hoping he would let me get back to the cobblestone streets of centuries ago.
I haven’t read Fifty Shades of Grey, but I’m sure Rice’s S&M book was written better.
When my students say Stephanie Meyer made vampires sexy, Antonio Banderas’s Armand rises from his slumber and wraps his lips around my heart.
Tonight, I’m going to raise a glass of very red wine to heartthrobs, New Orleans, and Anne Rice.
