March 1998
How the new tales begin
Meet author Anne Rice and read an excerpt from Pandora: New Tales of the Vampires
Describe your book in 50 words or less:
The book is about moral survival of a brilliant, highly educated and independent minded woman born in ancient
Rome in the time of Augustus Caesar. How this woman is seduced by mysticism, and finally vampirism, how she
fights for her soul -- that's the book.
What's your favorite line in the book?
I can't single out one line. I hear Pandora's voice. I like it. But no one line leaps out.
Which writer's work influenced you least?
That's impossible to say. I don't remember well those writers who lack
impact. Pedestrian realism disappoints me.
About what will your next book be?
The Vampire Armand is my next book. Again, the transformation from human to vampire represents transcendence
as well as destruction.
Your most aggravating habit?
Being too enthusiastic. To cure the habit, I write out my passions.
Which one extremely famous person would you like to read your book?
President Clinton. The man is brilliant.
If you had a yacht, what would you name it?
"The Sweet Christine" -- a name I used for a yacht in The Witching Hour.
What one thing would you like to learn to do?
Dance. I want so much to dance -- tap dance, Ginger Rodgers' style dancing, whirling in circles.
Excerpt from Pandora: New Tales of the Vampires
Not twenty minutes has passed since you left me here in the cafe, since I said No to your request, that I would never write out for you the story of my mortal life, how I became a vampire -- how I came upon Marius only years after he had lost his human life.
Now here I am with your notebook open, using one of the sharp pointed eternal ink pens you left me, delighted at the sensuous press of the black ink into the expensive and flawless white paper.
Naturally, David, you would leave me something elegant, an inviting page. This notebook bound in dark varnished leather, is it not, tooled with a design of rich roses, thornless, yet leafy, a design that means only Design in the final analysis but bespeaks an authority. What is written beneath this heavy and handsome book cover will count, sayeth this cover.
The thick pages are ruled light blue -- you are practical, so thoughtful, and you probably know I almost never put pen to paper to write anything at all.
Even the sound of the pen has its allure, the sharp scratch rather like the finest quills in ancient Rome when I would put them to parchment to write my letters to my Father, when I would write in a diary my own laments . . . ah, that sound. The only thing missing here is the smell of ink, but we have the fine plastic pen which will not run out for volumes, making as fine and deep a black mark as I choose to make.
I am thinking about your request in writing. You see you will get something from me. I find myself yielding to it, almost as one of our human victims yields to us, discovering perhaps as the rain continues to fall outside, as the cafe continues with its noisy chatter, to think that this might not be the agony I presumed -- reaching back over the two thousand years -- but almost a pleasure, like the act of drinking blood itself.
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Anne Rice is the author of many books. She lives in New Orleans with her husband, the poet and painter Stan Rice.
Pandora: New Tales of the Vampires, by Anne Rice
Alfred A. Knopf, $19.95
ISBN 0375401598
Random House Large Print Edition, $19.95
ISBN 0375702180
Random House Audiobooks, CD, $19.95
ISBN 0375402284
Random House Audiobooks, cassette, $18.00
ISBN 375401806
Unabridged, $34.95
ISBN 0375402292
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