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An extended interview with the author of Interview with the Vampire (1976), etc., conducted by an old friend who wishes to display ``how much fun she is to talk to, how interesting and thoughtful, how candid, how honest and even brave.'' Though autobiography is touched on--Rice's Catholic girlhood, her rebellious early marriage to an atheistic poet, her daughter's death from leukemia, the disaffected return from San Francisco to funky New Orleans, her kind of town--the emphasis of these near- monologues is on Rice's fluctuating inner state and her emotional involvement with her work. Fascinated as only the initially repressed can be by what she calls ``transgressive'' fiction, Rice explains how writing pornography under pseudonyms freed her to find the unique Rice voice and unify all her recent novels--whether about vampires, witches, or demons--into the Rice ``world'' or ``franchise,'' in which her many, many admirers take a proprietary interest. Though a reader of Flaubert and Yeats and a devourer of religious history, Rice endearingly states that she has ``never been a sophisticated writer'' and indeed that intellectuals can be ``rather merciless people.'' She continues to resent negative reviews but finds validation in a popularity that ranges ``from teenagers . . . to truck drivers'' and includes fans who tend to a neo-Victorian, S&M aesthetic. Though not foolish when it comes to dealing with publishers and filmmakers--her lengthily described duelling match with Hollywood on the way to filming Interview could try the patience of the undead--it is true that Rice's obsession with the configurations of sex, power, and violence partake of a self-regarding naivet‚, an almost militant lack of irony, that inflames both her friends and her enemies. It is the source, that is, both of mass love and not inconsiderable dislike. Riley lets Rice have her say. The result is essential for aficionados and basic homework for any critic.
Submitted by SatinMist
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