In what sounds like a Halloween prank, but is apparently not, Anne Rice has found Jesus! Though she rejoined the Catholic Church in 1998, after leaving at 18 years old, Rice has publicly declared that from now on, “I would write only for the Lord.”
On the one hand, it seems like it would be fun to get into the whole headspace of “OMFG! Isn’t this crazy?” But another part of me looks at this information and sees nothing more than a carefully crafted media virus designed to breathe new life into her career, boost advance book sales, and mentally prepare people for the genre-switch that she’s about to pull off. If that is the case, and this is totally a PR stunt, then I applaud her and her people for it. Masterfully done!
And if she’s really all about Jesus now, that’s also cool. I can totally respect that, and realize how much flak she’s going to take for this from her longtime fans - much like Bob Dylan’s conversion in the late 70’s and early 80’s. It cracks me up how fans can get so bent out of shape when their icons turn out to have real lives of their own, and don’t simply live to please and fulfill the narrow expectations of their fans.
Since I’m already giving her some free publicity in either case, here’s a link to the book itself on Amazon, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. The book is a portrait of Jesus as a 7 year old boy, and draws on personal inspiration, Scriptural source, and apocrypha, such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.
From the MSNBC article:
“Out of Egypt” and its projected sequels—three, she thinks—could alienate her following; as she writes in the afterword, “I was ready to do violence to my career.” But she sees a continuity with her old books, whose compulsive, conscience-stricken evildoers reflect her long spiritual unease. “I mean, I was in despair.” In that afterword she calls Christ “the ultimate supernatural hero … the ultimate immortal of them all.”
In any event, I guess I ought to admit that I’ve never actually read any of Anne Rice’s books. I did enjoy the movie version of Interview With The Vampire though.
[via altReligion]
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5 Comments
Yeah, it doesn’t seem too much of a stretch to go from “vampires” to transubstantiation and “drinking The Blood and eating the Body of Christ on Sunday.”
It’s pretty interesting to wonder how her “cult following” have reacted. What happens to a person living in that mentality a little more obsessively when their ‘leader’ and life-inspiration flips the tables so drastically? I mean, I’d imagine it would be like J.K. Rowling writing at the end of her 8th book:
“And it was alllllllllll a dream. Harry Potter was still poor and useless and lived under the stairs, but he sure had imaginative dreams, now didn’t he? The End.”
And I agree, Interview with a Vampire was great.
if ann rice was interested in her fan base loyalty she would have written her new book under another name. pure public relations, but why not? good for her and good for writers in general.
Jesus certainly disappointed certain parts of his “King of the Jews, kick the Romans out,†fan base back in the day.
Don’t dig or trust brilliant PR stunts, but this would be kinda artful judged on its own terms. Maybe it is something more than just a corporate PR profit gambit, eh?
At the very least, she will pick up some of Karl Rove’s moral values christian (data)base, which may be bigger than the fan base she had before.
I can see it now: Anne Rice writing the sequel to the film Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter…
I’ve read a bunch of her books. She’s … a tough read.
I can only imagine what this will be like. I might pick it up just to see.