Surprises and redemption are found in Anne Rice's spiritual memoir

Intermountain Catholic

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SALT LAKE CITY – How does a successful writer of vampire fiction with more than 20 books to her name make a radical change to "writing only of God and for God?"

Anne Rice, author of such books as "Interview With a Vampire" and "The Vampire Lestat" has made just such a change through a profound conversion experience.

Her first two novels on the life of Christ, "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" and "Christ the Lord: Out of Cana" introduced readers to Rice’s new writing vocation.

Now, with painful honesty, Rice has written her own confession, telling the story of how she moved from being an atheist for more than 30 years to becoming a devout Catholic.

Raised in New Orleans, La., Rice grew up in Sts. Charles and Philip Parish. She attended a Catholic elementary school, and for a time dreamed of becoming a nun. There she was exposed to music, art, the opera, books and classical music. Even today she dreams of producing remakes of the great religious film classics.

But when her family moved from the Catholic community of New Orleans to Texas, Rice found herself in a co-educational public school and her faith began to waver. Her mother died of alcoholism the summer after Rice’s freshman year in high school.

In her book, Rice openly admits that she was an unhappy child and an unhappy teen. She struggled with the gender morass of the time and in college "my faith began to crack apart…with a heart and conscience in love with the wide world."

At 19, she left the Church, suffering "a catastrophe of the heart and mind."

For 38 years she wrote prodigiously. Some 21 books followed in her vampire and witches series. They were the work of a woman who believed "There was no God."

Rice married her high school sweetheart, Stan Rice, in 1961. Together they attended San Francisco State University. She struggled with reading throughout her school days, and majored in political science in college because she couldn’t keep up with the reading demanded of an English major. "I really didn’t learn to read until graduate school," she writes.

The changes in the world and American society during the 1960s were impressed upon her, re-forming her and re-shaping her experiences. Life in San Francisco was carefree, and she and Stan had tumultuous arguments. Her first book, "Interview With a Vampire," Rice writes, "was a lament for my lost faith."

That book propelled Rice to the top of the best seller’s list, and she moved from being "Stan’s wife" to being Anne Rice, the author.

Always on a spiritual journey reflected in the characters she created, Rice also struggled with gender; how she was received, how readers related to her female characters and how society treated women in general.

Rice writes that it was with a kind of blissful ignorance that she returned to the Catholic Church. She avoided the church’s controversies, allowing herself to be wooed back to Catholicism by its saints and mystics, its beautiful churches and cathedrals, and liturgies, now in English, which she learned to appreciate.

Today Anne Rice reads the works of theologians, "letting the Gospels really talk to me," and is profoundly affected by the Incarnation – that Jesus, the second person of the Holy Trinity, came to earth as a baby, born of a woman, and lived and died both human and divine.

As I came to the conclusion of "Called Out of Darkness," I found myself wanting more. I wasn’t ready for the book to end because I didn’t want Anne Rice’s conversion experience to conclude in any way.

Life for Rice has been filled with excitement, joy and loss, and her book is filled with surprises as she continues to respond with faith and even more faith. Sharing this author’s experiences of conversion reminds readers that there are always possibilities where faith is concerned. I would recommend that readers keep this in mind as they share in the faith life of Anne Rice.

"Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession," by Anne Rice, Knopf Publishing, New York and Toronto, 2008, 245 pages, hardcover, $24.