Gothic Queen Anne Rice
BY AMY FIRIS
The Goth queen is back again. But this time, she's with different company.
Leaving behind Lestat and the Mayfair witches, Anne Rice focuses her new book, Servant of the Bones (Knopf, $25.95), on ghosts. More specifically on Azriel, a Hebrew genie who wants to change his evil ways.
True to form, Servant of the Bones sees Rice once again trampling significant themes into trivia. Her campy style skims the surface of the Hasidic Jewish belief system, bringing readers into the world of Isaiah and Jeremiah and the destruction of Solomon's temple but never delving beyond the historic rhetoric and lore.
But the velvet-clad masses will once again "oohh" and "aahh" as Azriel journeys from ancient Babylon, plotting royal and religious upheavals, to face his own human origins amidst the towers of modern-day Manhattan. This is not much of a stretch from her previous supernatural best sellers, but, hey, when you find a style that works run with it.
Gothic Queen Anne Rice
And the style does work for Rice. Battling obscurity for years as Anne Rampling and A.N. Roquelaure, Rice peddled "soft-porn novels" (her words, not mine) until she broke through with Interview with the Vampire. The world she created, filled with vintage B-movie dialogue and grand old New Orleans houses, has become a world where legions of fans want to live. And Rice is more than happy to accommodate all ye who enter.
For a writer, Rice is a master of publicity. Her home address and phone number are common knowledge among the white-faced, fanged masses. Her newsletter is free to anyone who sends her an address. And her book tours are events not to be missed. To kick off the signing for her last novel, Memnoch the Devil, Rice dressed in a white wedding dress and climbed in a coffin. After a full-fledged Jazz funeral, a glass hearse carried her to the bookstore where she rose from the dead to sign books for eight hours.
But for a writer, Rice isn't a model of perfection. Though she does work with an editor at Knopf, Rice doesn't actually allow her to edit. As Rice brags, "As a matter of fact, my editor has graciously gotten used to the fact that she can't change anything." The grammatical errors her books are often riddled with attest to that.
But errors or not, Servant of the Bones is already on its way up the best seller lists. With the publicity Rice is generating in her current 40-city tour, she's almost guaranteed to end up at number one. Unfortunately for Cincinnati, her only visit to this corner of the country is Dayton, Ohio. Why Rice chose to sign in a semi-city when the bookstore capital of the world - that's us, folks - is a mere 45 minutes away is yet another one of her dark secrets.
ANNE RICE signs her new book, Servant of the Bones, at 5-8 p.m. Sunday at Books & Co. in Dayton, Ohio. Pick up line numbers beginning at 4 p.m. Those dressed as a character from any of Rice's books gets a shot at winning an Anne Rice T-shirt.
Issue 2, Vol. 41, - Aug. 29-Sept.4, 1996