'Interview with the Vampire' author Anne Rice takes NPR on a tour of her haunted home

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Novelist Anne Rice was known for her supernatural tales about vampires, witches, and ghosts. In 1976, she gained notoriety for Interview with the Vampire, the first book in The Vampire Chronicles series. In today’s episode, we revisit a 2003 conversation between Rice and NPR’s Liane Hansen about Rice's novel 'Blood Canticle' — and the spirits that haunted the author’s own home.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Amper's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong, and all this week, to celebrate Halloween,
0:07.7	we will be bringing you some of the spookiest author interviews we've got, starting with Anne Rice.
0:13.8	You know her for her vampire books, right? In fact, we actually just chatted about interview with a vampire
0:19.1	on our books we loved limited series.
0:22.2	Shout out to all of you for listening and check it out if you haven't heard yet.
0:25.6	But anyway, back to Anne Rice.
0:27.6	NPR's Leanne Hansen did this interview with her back in 2003 and she was talking about
0:32.0	the latest Lestat novel, Blood Canticle.
0:34.6	It was one of those interviews where Leanne went to Anne Rice's house for the taping,
0:38.7	and usually when that happens, it's a normal interview. But in this instance, they spent a few
0:45.0	minutes talking about how Anne Rice's house is haunted. Like there's a ghost that co-occupies the place,
0:52.7	and Rice talks about it like it's any other
0:55.8	bothersome part of home ownership, like a crack in the drywall or a leaky faucet.
1:01.5	It's a great listen.
1:03.0	After the break.
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1:19.9	Support for NPR and the following message
1:22.1	come from the estate of Joan B. Croc,
	...

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