I know this will be hard for some of you to believe, but Anne Rice actually can write about more than just vampires. Shocking, right? Her fans have always know this, sure, but the everyday guy who’s never read any of her work, vampiric or otherwise? Not so much. I heard another guy this week, when discussing the upcoming film THE YOUNG MESSIAH, which is based on Rice’s novel from a few years back, CHRIST THE LORD: OUT OF EGYPT, exclaim: “Oh, yeah. That’s the one where Jesus is a vampire, right?” The sad thing is, I’ve heard other people say the exact same thing before. No, knuckleheads, the novel is a straight-up fictionalized account of the childhood of Jesus Christ, the same Jesus as depicted in the Bible. No “alternative” takes, no secret spouses or hidden conspiracies, and no vampires.
People who need this explained to them probably find it hard to believe that Rice is a Christian. They hear the term and probably automatically think of nutbags like Pat Robertson or Mike Huckabee. Those same folks might just suffer a mental blowout if they learn that shock-rocker Alice Cooper, who interviews Rice in the linked-to article below, is also a believer. If Cooper doesn’t fit the stereotypical image of what a Christian is supposed to look like, then all the better, I say. And if Anne Rice has again separated herself from the Catholic Church, as she did in her youth, not because she doesn’t believe in the message of Christianity but because she believes the CC has misconstrued and twisted that message, all I can do is applaud.
Hear, hear!!!