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Anne Rice is The contemporary gothic novelist, as is said. Intriguiing in subject matter, she chooses charming rich-in-culture settings such as New Orleands, and the historical Rome, Paris, and Egypt, among others. She intertwines mysticism with romance, giving face to characters who may have otherwise been left apart from sympathy. Yet, even the protagonists leave the readers confused as to wether or not to love or hate them. One can sense a religious streak in her writings, neither promoting nor diswaying, as well as a great tendency to have the stories be dictated by the character itself, drawing her in as the author to be a pen name to their illustrious tales.Yet, let's not look at her with a historical point of view, for surely she has made her mark in the literary world, and an eerie one at that, for it mimicks another gothic novelist in literary history. I speak of Mary Shelley. Like Anne, Mary wrote of monsters, of her Frankenstein, as Anne writes of vampires and witches and demons and other damned misunderstood creatures. And, like Anne, Mary is married to a poet, in fact, a poet of love and lust, with this I speak of Percy Byshe Shelley. Anne's husband is Stan Rice, a poet whose works are commonplace preceding chapters in her novels.
Anne Rice lives in New Orleans with her husband Stan and their son Cristopher. She had a daughter once, who sadly passed away, and who is in fact the model for the character Claudia, the child-vampire in Interview With the Vampire. It is this home that they live in that is the model for the house depicted in the Mayfair Witch series and also the model for the sanctuary of a certain religious character in Memnoch the Devil. Her home is also the host of many open balls Anne herself holds for her fans and such.
Now, speaking of ameos, one must speak of the links between the Mayfair Witch series and the Vampire Chronicles. This is, the Talamasca. The Talamasca is a society-like world-wide group of scholars who search out to witness and document unexplainable phenomena (aka, the vampires in The Vampire Chronicles, and the 'witches' in the Mayfair Witch series). A group leader of the Talamasca, David, through Tale of the Body Theif becomes a vampire. In The Vampire Lestat and other books as well, it is mentioned that there are two other immortals that roam the earth, one being named as Ramses, of the book Ramses the Damned, the other eluded to as being the Servent of the Bones, of the book of the same title. Thes shows that the books are not individual worlds unto themselves, but spun tales, cohabitating with each other. Which makes them all the more intriguing and beautifully complex.
For more information about Anne Rice via online, be sure to visit www.annerice.com. It is notable to say that althoough she has an extensive site, directed under her very eyes, she doesn't even use the internet herself. She does however have a telephone answering machine where she addresses her fans periodically.
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