I May Actually Read an Anne Rice Novel: Anne Rice Forsakes Vampires and Embraces Christ

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According to this article in Newsweek, Anne Rice, queen of erotica-vampire novels that have made her millions, has embraced her roots. She has returned to the Catholic Church, which she had left at 18. Recent years have not been easy for her, despite her success and wealth. Her husband of 41 years died recently. Rice herself came near death during surgery in 1998. Now, despite having made her career on writing about dark, sexualized supernatural murderers, she finds herself compelled to write Christ, who she descrpibes as "the ultimate supernatural hero ... the ultimate immortal of them all."

Rice has written the first book in a series that will track the life of Christ (inlcuding Jesus' studies with Philo of Alexandria). Obviously fictional, it will follow Jesus' childhood starting in Egypt. Do not expect future books to return to the vampires that made her famous: "[F]rom now on I would write only for the Lord." Fictional stories about Christ make some Christians nervous, but I read them with interest and will read Rice's when I find the time. It should be all the more interesting because Rice has immersed herself "in first-century histories and New Testament scholarship." Like me, she finds some of them "disturbingly skeptical."

I for one look forward to reading books written by a novelist as talented as Rice who has done her homework on the historical Jesus. But more important, it is nice to be able to say, "Welcome home, Ms. Rice."

PS-In the interest of full disclosure, I actually enjoy vampire stories. I was a Buffy and Angel fan for most of their seasons. Thought Lost Boys was pretty cool. I enjoyed John Steakley's Vampire$. I even liked Dracula 2000 (disclaimer: I saw the edited t.v. version), in which Judas became the first vampire after his betrayal of Jesus. This explained his aversion to silver, holy water, and the Cross. I was not much interested in Anne Rice's novels because, as conveyed by the movie adaptions, they focused on the depravity of the vampire characters.

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