There was no sad boy vampire until Anne Rice.

They were like sexy evil monsters.

But she made them like philosophical, complex, tortured anti-heroes.

And I mean, we love a tortured anti-hero.

You're listening to Books We've Loved from NPR.

The book show where we reread old favorites and tell you why they still matter today. I'm Andrew Limbong. And I'm B.A. Parker. What up, Parker? How you doing? I'm good, Andrew. How you doing? This book has got me riled up. Tell us more. Tell us more. I know. We'll get it to. We'll get it to it. Here with us to talk about interview with the vampire by the one and only Anne Rice is Barry Hardiman, long time NPR editor and PCHH panelist. What's up, Barry? How are you doing? I'm good. How are you? Well, you just said. I'm riled up. I'm riled up. You've read this book before? Oh, yeah. Are you a rice head? No, no, I discovered Anne Rice on my parents' bookshelf.

Like, we had a book club copy of Queen of the Damned. And everybody said that it was going to be sexy. So I read it and it was like, not that sexy. You know, so like in my like middle school, high school experience, it was very much part of a sort of a gothic moment for me, Bronte, Daphne

D'Amoyer. So it was of a piece for me. Yeah. Just a sad girl in a haunted house. Yeah.

Yearning. That's me. I was a sad girl in a haunted house. I love it. Yeah. All right. For

folks who haven't read it, I'm just going to run through a very brief synopsis.

And just a disclaimer for this episode, this book, and therefore our conversation will discuss sex.

But right, so this book is structured around a journalist interviewing a vampire.

The vampire in question is named Louis, who goes through how he became a vampire.

And a lot of it is centered around his relationship with a vampire named Lestat, who is the one who turned him, as well as Claudia, the five-year-old girl vampire that they take care of.

And this family dynamic is happy for a bit, but it doesn't last long.

I'm going to yada yada over some of the spoilers, but it does end up with Louis pretty much on his own.

All right.

Now, Andrew, why did you pick this?

Okay.

I feel like we're in a vampire era currently.

I was reading The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones, which is like a horror book that is about vampires, but a very

different interpretation of vampires.

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