Interview with the Vampire

By: Anne Rice

Narrated by: Simon Vance

40th ANNIVERSARY EDITION • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, "a magnificent, compulsively readable thriller...Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth—the education of the vampire” (Chicago Tribune). • The inspiration for the hit television series

The time is now.

We are in a small room with the vampire, face to face, as he speaks--as he pours out the hypnotic, shocking, moving, and erotically charged confessions of his first two hundred years as one of the living dead. . .

He speaks quietly, plainly, even gently . . . carrying us back to the night when he departed human existence as heir--young, romantic, cultivated--to a great Louisiana plantation, and was inducted by the radiant and sinister Lestat into the other, the "endless," life . . . learning first to sustain himself on the blood of cocks and rats caught in the raffish streets of New Orleans, then on the blood of human beings . . . to the years when, moving away from his final human ties under the tutelage of the hated yet necessary Lestat, he gradually embraces the habits, hungers, feelings of vampirism: the detachment, the hardened will, the "superior" sensual pleasures.

He carries us back to the crucial moment in a dark New Orleans street when he finds the exquisite lost young child Claudia, wanting not to hurt but to comfort her, struggling against the last residue of human feeling within him . . .

We see how Claudia in turn is made a vampire--all her passion and intelligence trapped forever in the body of a small child--and how they arrive at their passionate and dangerous alliance, their French Quarter life of opulence: delicate Grecian statues, Chinese vases, crystal chandeliers, a butler, a maid, a stone nymph in the hidden garden court . . . night curving into night with their vampire senses heightened to the beauty of the world, thirsting for the beauty of death--a constant stream of vulnerable strangers awaiting them below . . .

We see them joined against the envious, dangerous Lestat, embarking on a perilous search across Europe for others like themselves, desperate to discover the world they belong to, the ways of survival, to know what they are and why, where they came from, what their future can be . . .

We follow them across Austria and Transylvania, encountering their kind in forms beyond their wildest imagining . . . to Paris, where footsteps behind them, in exact rhythm with their own, steer them to the doors of the Théâtre des Vampires--the beautiful, lewd, and febrile mime theatre whose posters of penny-dreadful vampires at once mask and reveal the horror within . . . to their meeting with the eerily magnetic Armand, who brings them, at last, into intimacy with a whole brilliant and decadent society of vampires, an intimacy that becomes sudden terror when they are compelled to confront what they have feared and fled . . .

In its unceasing flow of spellbinding storytelling, of danger and flight, of loyalty and treachery, Interview with the Vampire bears witness of a literary imagination of the first order.

©1976 Anne Rice (P)2011 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"[A] magnificent, compulsively readable thriller...Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth - the education of the vampire.” (Chicago Tribune)

“Unrelentingly erotic...sometimes beautiful, and always unforgettable.” (Washington Post)

“If you surrender and go with her...you have surrendered to enchantment, as in a voluptuous dream.” (Boston Globe)

Standard Bearer for the Genre

As we approach the 'Teens there is, in my experience, an inordinate interest in the Vampire genre - Twilight, True Blood, Dark Shadows and even Hotel Transalvania are some examples. All of these (though I admit to having seen only the 1st Season of True Blood) pale into comparison with this excellent book. There are many things to like about it. Among my list are its level of detail,its lack of tasteless romance and pointless sensuality and its true Gothic insight. There is, of course, an element of romanticism and sensuality, but they are not at the forefront of the narrative. That narrative is dominated by Louis, Lestat, Armand and Claudia.
If you have read Dracula, or Frankenstein, or Golem and enjoyed them, then you will probably enjoy this too.
I waited a while to write the review. First I wanted to re-watch the film. I had remembered Lestat as a nicer character. He was in the Tom Cruise played role, but he is not in the book. I had remembered Christina as older (played by a very young Kirsten Dunst), but she is not in the book. This apart, the movie is a reasonably faithful adaptation and I enjoyed it again, as I did revisiting the book.
And then for the performance; Simon Vance gives a super performance, again. He reprises some of his Dracula style (from the audio I listened to earlier this year and I have reviewed elsewhere). For me he held the book together when it was beginning to drain me (no pun intended). I think the book is a tad too long (hence the 3 stars for Story). The accent at the beginning was a bit hard to appreciate, but by the end it was absolutely right. Armand was pitched beautifully, too. Perhaps Claudia was the least effective character, but I suspect that is the tone of the book rather than the voice interpretation.
Overall, I think the book a true standard bearer. I look forward to The Vampire Lestat in the not too distant future.

Compelling, Simon Vance does it again!

I had only seen the movie. It was good, but listening to the book narrated by Simon Vance is great. Immediately bought Lestat.

Spooky Fun

An interesting book that stays one step ahead of you the whole time. Different takes on the Vampire legends are always fun and entertaining to read.

No One can beat Anne Rice

Having read the vampire trilogy by Anne Rice when they first came out, it was very nice to see them in an unabridged audiobook format.

Excellent listening!

Wow! INCREDIBLE performance by the narrator!

The story itself is pretty good, I mostly really enjoyed it but it dragged a bit about 3/4 thru. I felt like there was about 3 hours straight of talking about the feelings of the characters and how they felt about each other and their non-sexual love triangle. it picked up towards the end and finished strong, I thought. It’s a heartbreaking tale in many ways, filled with philosophy and metaphor of fading love and loss and despair and loneliness.

However - the narrators performance was nothing short of stunning. His inflection on particular words or phrases really brought the book to life. There wasn’t a single instance where it felt like he was reading it for the first time. The subtle changes in inflection on specific turns of phrase made me believe the narrator was speaking in the true voice of the book, rather than reading something someone else wrote. He BECAME the characters. It’s this type of narration that makes me want to go revise my past reviews downward because he showed me how good narration can be. One of, if not THE, best audiobook narrations I’ve ever experienced (and I listen to a lot of audiobooks and am quite picky).

After some audiobooks I feel like I would have a different but equivalent experience reading the book. Some audiobooks I feel would be far better read in text than narrated. This is one of those rare cases where I feel reading the print version would pale in comparison to the audiobook here.

A Classic

The performance was fantastic. I've read this novel many time and was pleased with the Audible performance.

Simon Vance ...

A wonderful story read by a master performer. I read the story for the first time in the 80s, saw the movie (which I actually enjoyed), and then listened to the best version, here

Unable to stop.

I was unable to stop listening. The narration was amazing and kept me listening more and more until the story had a great hold over me.

excellent Read. This book was well read

I would like to read the next installment. This book has captured my queries. And I need to know what happened next.

Dracula Reads "Interview with the Vampire!"

I'd read this book in paperback years ago, so I knew what to expect from the prose. Mr. Vance seemed to be reading with an affected Bela Lugosi accent. He's British, according to his bio, so I'm fairly certain that wasn't his natural voice. Still, he gets credit for the correct pronunciation of the main character's name -- I'm currently listening to an audiobook of "Queen of the Damned," and every time the narrator pronounces "Louis" with a sibilant "S" it irks me just a little.