Anne Rice, ‘Interview With A Vampire’ Author, Dies At 80

Anne Rice, an author best known for 1976’s Interview With A Vampire, has died on Saturday at a hospital in Rancho Mirage, California at the age of 80.

Her son, Christopher Rice, confirmed the news in a moving tribute on Rice’s official Facebook page, stating that the cause of her death was complications of a stroke.

He also noted that her death came almost nineteen years to the day her husband Stan died. Christopher also wrote about her influence on him, “As a writer, she taught me to defy genre boundaries and surrender to my obsessive passions.”

Rice told the New York Times in 1988 that Interview With A Vampire was not just the supernatural story of a monster, but also the realization of her own story and childhood growing up in New Orleans. “It’s not a fantasy for me. My childhood came to life for me.”

Rice was born Howard Allen O’Brien on October 4, 1941, in New Orleans to Howard and Katherine (Allen) O’Brien. She was named after her father, and later took the name “Anne” in grade school.

Rice grew up in New Orleans and reportedly had a vivid imagination from a young age. She became disillusioned by the Catholic Church after years of Christian education. She would later tell The Times that she had a “great deal of anger against a church that would teach kids a 7-year-old could burn in hell for French kissing, right alongside e a Nazi sadist.”

Interview With A Vampire apparently came to be in part due to a tragic event in her family. After marrying Stan Rice in 1961, their first daughter Michele died of leukemia at the age of five. After a period of depression, Rice began to “write and write and write,” and eventually found huge success with the result.

After Interview With A Vampire, Rice kept her Gothic world alive by continuing to write in the series named Vampire Chronicles. These included The Vampire Lestat (1985), The Tale of the Body Thief (1992), and most recently Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat (2018).

Along with her son Christopher, Rice is survived by her sisters Karen O’Brien, Micki Jenkins and Tamara Tinker. Next year, a public celebration of her life will take place in New Orleans in honor of her readers and fans “who brought her such joy and inspiration throughout her life.”