#without Anne Rice really knowing that except for she knew she was employing some unreliable narration

[likehandlingroses]

“I began the journey towards my first novel with a vampire named Louis in a room in San Francisco telling his personal story to a young reporter, who two books later acquired the name of Daniel. A vampire named Lestat was born early on in Louis’s story as Louis described how he’d been seduced into vampirism by a ‘maker’ he regarded as evil and shallow and unworthy of the gift of immortality he’d given to Louis. Louis’s deep resentment of Lestat colored all of Interview with the Vampire. Yet there were plenty of hints in the novel that Lestat himself might have a very different version of events to reveal, if he were ever allowed to speak. Indeed Lestat’s vitality and glamour came to elicit an enormous response from readers, for which I wasn’t at all prepared.

“Shortly after Interview with the Vampire was published, one of my good friends had a fierce argument with me in which she told me Lestat was the hero of my novel—not the melancholy and ever-complaining Louis, but Lestat, Lestat who loved life and embraced life. Another friend, listening quietly all while, said, ‘You drew Louis in ink. You painted Lestat in oils.’” —Anne Rice, Introduction to Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles: An Alphabettery