Nicki and his endless internal darkness Armand, who manages to be both tragic and terrifying Gabrielle, who seems like a force of nature and even Louis, the whiny, unreliable narrator from Interview comes off as beautiful and mysterious, the star-crossed love of Lestat's afterlife.

Lestat, of course, Rice's 'brat prince', arrogant and compassionate and impossible, all at the same time - he'd be enough to carry any book, imo, but the secondary characters are just as layered and bewitching, probably because we see them through Lestat's eyes. Or at least, I didn't appreciate it for the sheer masterpiece of storytelling that it is, and it's not just the mood and the world and the mythology and the fast-moving plot - more than anything, it's the characters. This was a re-read for me, but in all honesty, I don't think I was ready for this book the first time I read it. Signed, All Fictional Vampires Who Are Not Lestat Lestat might not be a being of light (that's another topic) but his darkness is illuminating.

Yet I am reminded of something Jung said, we do not become enlighted by imagining beings of light, but by making the darkness visible (I'm paraphrasing). I know that many bemoan Anne's move from the supernatural and to Christian writings. A lot of that was set afire because of reading this book. The questions I've asked, the roads I've taken, the experiences I've had, are all a result of my search for my own truth. Now, 17 years later I've been around the world many times, am nearing the completion of two degrees (psychology and philosophy) and am a much different, much broader, much more deepened soul. I had become a philosopher (though not a good one). With no reading, history, or even exposure to any philosophy (Arkansas public school after all) I now asked questions about ethics, the nature of God, what is beauty, morality, and more. It is a slippery slope to question everything. By witnessing the drama of Lestat's journey, this manifestation of the Shadow declaring it's evil and it's good. That queston, can something evil love? The values of the Southern protestant is one of black and white and there is no mixing, no grey, no overlap. The book engendered a question within me that never found any sunlight growing up a protestant in the Deep South.

I went to the base library to check out Dracula and beside it on the shelf was this book. I joined the Marines in 89 and while watching a movie about a teenage vampire it was mentioned that Dracula is 'good literature'. I didn't read anything else other than fantasy novels (like Dragonlance). I don't mean that I turned goth or vampire or whatever. This is one of those books that defined me.

City spies