The Vampire Lestat: Ballentine Books Edition (Vampire Chronicles) [Paperback]

In this book you discover the true Lestat, rather then the abnoxious, uncaring brut portrayed in the first book. Here Lestat answers the questions that we desire to know like How was Lestat made? The history of Armand? Is Armand the eldest Vampire? Where do the Vampires originate from and even How was the Theatre de Vampire's formed? All these questions are tackled and a short glimpse into the after Interview with the Vampire is shown with a shocking ending that leaves you with one thought, "Where can I buy 'Queen of the Damned'?"

It was the story of Claudia the vampire child that touched my heart in the first novel, although the moral and philosophical questions asked by Louis opened the door for a new kind of vampire literature. Still, Lestat hovered and brooded over every page of Interview With the Vampire, leaving nothing but unanswered questions in the wake of his coldness and sometimes pathetic manifestations. One could not help but wonder about his origins and history, the heavy weights of his mysterious life having left him little more than a husk of a vampire at the end of Louis' story. Finding out in the opening pages of The Vampire Lestat that this inscrutable wanderer is not only thriving once again but that he has in fact become a rock star seems pretty strange. Yet all things are made clear in this novel, for this is Lestat's story, and he violates every vampire law by revealing secrets beyond the ken of mortal man. Lestat wants to embrace his true nature, show the world's population that vampires live amongst them, and incite a glorious war between man and the Children of the Night.

This is much more than just Lestat's story, however. What Anne Rice has managed to do in this novel is to create a brand new history and legend of the vampire, taking this most beloved of horror themes and transcending the literature of Stoker, Le Fanu, and the greats of the past. The cold and inscrutable Lestat we saw in Interview With the Vampire is now revealed to be at one time the most human of vampires, an immortal whose love for humans exceeded even that of his creation Louis. We learn of his human childhood, his creation by the immensely old and powerful Magnus in the seventeenth century. The depth of his feelings for his mother and adolescent soul companion Nicholas are quite touching and beautiful, and we see how his first recipients of the Dark Trick come to bring him much pain and tragedy. We see his crazed outbursts and intensity of feeling revealed in the most telling of ways. We learn much more about the vampire Armand, a character I quite honestly despise for his weakness. He hides behind old traditions, betraying the very notions of his own creator Marius by embracing a pseudo-religion of evil, punishing those wretched creatures who dare disturb his antiquated way of existence. Marius, an ancient vampire of great power who links Armand and Lestat together in the most telling of ways, introduces Lestat and ourselves to the Mother and the Father, Those Who Must Be Kept, and it is through these individuals that the history of vampirism is delivered so originally and brilliantly here, drawing and touching upon ancient Egypt, religion, philosophy, and a myriad of other powerful subjects and inspirations. Through Lestat's daring and individualism, we learn much more than any other vampire teacher could tell us; he truly did have stories to tell, and now we learn why he refused to share his wisdom with Louis and Claudia.

The introduction of the Mother and the Father, Akasha and Enkil, leads us directly into the next book in the series, The Queen of the Damned, and The Vampire Lestat actually ends on a note of new beginnings potentially more powerful than anything introduced and revealed in this book's 550 pages. I find Those Who Must Be Kept absolutely fascinating, the most ancient of vampires who live lives of immobility and seeming inactivity, staring open-eyed eternally, leaving open the possibility to Lestat in particular that they can be reawakened. Yet Lestat's active plans, his flagrant announcement to the world that he is a vampire (even though mortals may believe in the image rather than the reality of what he is saying) and his daring publication of the most secret of his kind's secrets leaves one spellbound and in wonder as to how things will play out in the end. His actions are rash and dangerous, yet the exuberance he feels in doing these things brings him to life ever more fully. I could go on and on about the wonder and power of this novel, but even then I could not begin to convey the beauty and force with which Anne Rice weaves her dark wonders. Anne Rice takes us inside the hearts and minds of these vampire characters, and that is a perspective that even Bram Stoker never provided. I thought nothing could possibly surpass the dark brilliance of Dracula, but I have to say that The Vampire Lestat is the greatest vampire novel I have ever read.

The story takes you through an entire life, one spanning several centuries and numerous cultural revolutions. Such an extravagant backdrop is the only thing worthy of a larger than life and death protagonist like Lestat. He is truly driven, passionate, confounding, melodramatic but surprisingly incisive. He does the unforgivable, yet his contrition is greater than any condemnation you can give him, and so you do forgive him because you can't not. There are very few characters in English literature as charismatic as this one - with his fierce intelligence and concern for everything and nothing. Not only does he bring glamour to Vampirehood, but he makes your revere the mortal condition too. Everything sparkles - the endless cast of characters, the scenery, the concepts. It opens your mind to a whole new way of thinking, has more than enough logic to establish its own cult - if Lestat wasn't so dedicated to being damned. Only 'the Tale of the Body Thief' even comes close to reviving the same marvel with which you regard such an impossible character. Engrossing, compulsive and unforgettable.