Of the people whom I love but have never met, Anne Rice is at the top of that list. The list is actually very short, and still, she's at the top. It is my fondest wish, in the sense that, if I am ever dying and am granted one final wish, it would would be to meet her and have a conversation with her. This woman and her books were, at one point in my life, a life raft. In 1994, my sister died, and later that year the film Interview With The Vampire was released. Wearing makeup, I easily passed for seventeen and my (living) sister and I went to see it. I like it a wicked great deal and was at this point also introduced to a young Kirsten Dunst. Mrs. Rice had been my (dead) sister's favorite author. She loved her then probably as much as I loved her later. My living sister was also quite fond of her, and gave me the books of hers that she had in her possession. I read The Vampire Lestat when my mother took us to Mexico for the holidays that year. It's probably the main reason why my memory of it isn't as miserable as my sister's.
After a fashion, I finished all her old books and then she released new ones, ones I was able to anticipate beforehand. I felt, and still feel, that the books she wrote in this period were utter crap. But I still read them, and I still found some value in them. In essence, I was fascinated by what she thought on various subjects, I just thought they made lousy book ideas. The sorts of things you should talk about in a conversation at 3 A.M., not publish and subject the unexpecting to. Eventually, this feeling won out in me, and I stopped buying most of her books. Until Blood And Gold. It's the best thing ever, and makes me want to read what she's written since. It's renewed my faith in and admiration of her.
Having finished this self-same book, I started thinking a lot about things that I'm not really talking about here. I decided that it had been too long since I'd kept up with her, and I decided to head over to AnneRice.com for some light (ha!) reading.
On December 9, 2002, while I wasn't paying attention, her husband, Stan Rice, passed away. Of cancer, because, of course. When isn't it? I knew that an art gallery in his name was openned in New Orleans, but I didn't know anything about this. When I read about this, earlier this evening, I cried as if I had known him. The author wrote the following:
I was married to Stan for 41 years. As far as I'm concerned, he died young. I don't even know what the world is going to be like for me without Stan. It's been "Stan and Anne" for so long that I have no concept of it. I'll go on writing, of course. Because one of the great things about being a writer is that you can write in sorrow, in grief, and anguish. You can use your emotions to make something constructive, and something perhaps that will remove these things for someone else.
Stan Rice was a poet and painter. In 1996, when I was in 8th grade, I had a random artistic moment, and painted swirls in watercolor on a piece of scrap paper. It seemed to be to take the shape of a rabbit, and I accentuated that, and wrote on the back of it a title, "Tragic Rabbit." I thought it was pretty damn good. "Tragic Rabbit" of course, was the title of a poem by Stan Rice. I like it very much, though I didn't really think I understood it. I didn't really know if I was supposed to. But anyway.
I also read a musing by Mrs. Rice on the current state of our country and the world, and I found myself very touched by it. Usually, I roll my eyes and make off-color comments at "celebrity" comments about the war or whatnot. I read an interview with Sharon Stone recently where it was most of what she talked about, and God did she sound like an asshole. But this was substantial, I felt. Perhaps it's because I already know and enjoy her style of writing, or her bend on things. What really caught my attention was her description of people. Good-hearted, struggling, and impassioned. She has written this way in her books about people in eras past, and, in fact, may be just how she she people in general. But she just makes it sound ... quaint.
AnneRice.com
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