Illumination and Darkness

(Editor’s Note: Michael Morrell is the connector extraordinaire and mastermind behind Zoecarnate.com.)

It began like a bad joke. A priest, a rabbi, a Baptist preacher - and Anne Rice - walk into a church. In Birmingham, Alabama. But here’s the punch line: It really happened. Its all part of the energetic new direction of the former queen of gothic horror: drawing shadows and shedding light around the greatest outsider of them all.

For those who don’t know, Anne Rice is the 136 million-copy author of over two decades worth of gothic horror novels, circling around the world of witches, vampires, and others on the fringe. She is perhaps best known for the 1994 film adaptation “Interview with a Vampire” which starred Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.

In what might prove to be one of the most significant literary conversions since C.S. Lewis, Rice quietly became a Christian in the late 1990s, returning to the Catholic church of her childhood. In 2002, she began work on an ambitious historical fiction series exploring Jesus and his earliest followers, to the shock of many long-time readers and fans. Like Lewis, there’s something about Anne Rice’s faith that is difficult to quantify, and she’s drawing friends and the curious from across denominational and cultural divides.

The first novel in this series, released from Knopf last year and in a Fawcett paperback this winter, is entitled Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. It’s good at doing what it does, simultaneously covering familiar ground while doing so in a unique voice…that of a seven-year-old Son of Man.

Rice and I were able to speak for a bit before the main event that night in Birmingham. When we sat down in the pastors’ study, Rice was flanked by a hastily assembled entourage: her Random House publicist, her assistants, a Franciscan monk named Beckett, and a trio of local friends, the main conversation partners for event that was about to take place: Rabbi Jonathan Miller of Temple Emanu-El, Father Ray Dunmyer of Our Lady of the Valley Catholic Church, and Reverend Steve Jones of the hosting church, Southside Baptist Church. Having this dozen or so folks flank the wall behind me made think I was Montel or something, but they kept quiet as church mice, and made room for Ms. Rice to speak.

I have to say, I was charmed. At 64, Rice is petite, relatively soft-spoken and yet absolutely radiant as she quietly articulates her new literary direction. And you should know that this is no flavor-of-the-week celebrity conversion. Contrary to some erroneous reports out there, Rice did not return to faith in Christ because of personal health complications, or because of the tragic death of her husband, Stan, in 2002. Her nudges toward spiritual awakening occurred before these incidents, and remained the guiding light in her writing.

“It became a total obsession,” Rice said. “It became absolutely the only thing I wanted to write - the life of Christ. I wanted to take whatever abilities I had as a novelist and put them to service of this story, which to me is the greatest story…the only story I really want to tell anymore. I came to believe that everything in my life has been a preparation for this. I think the theologian Karl Rahner said, ‘our obligation is to tell the Christian story anew.’ This sank into me at some point. It became important to bear witness and speak out to what I personally believe.”

I thought this was a stunning reversal, considering what shaky prior knowledge I possessed. I recall once in college several years ago, a coworker from a short-lived stint at a Japanese steak house was hanging out with me after-hours at a restaurant. “Anne Rice,” he told me in a low matter-of-fact tone, “I’ve been to her place, in New Orleans. And it’s weird, man. The locals say it’s not just her novels; she’s legit. A real, practicing vampire.”

So where did vampires fit into this, I wondered. How did Anne Rice trace her journey? Dwayne Johnson, a Southside Baptist administrator, was able to help me sort this out. As he put it, “I kind of take offense at people who imply that only non-Christians would read Ms. Rice’s vampire novels. I disagree completely. I am a Christian, I enjoyed them immensely, and I make no apologies for that.”

Johnson - a friend of Rice - was integral to arranging this unlikely punch line of an evening in the heart of the Bible Belt. He did it to challenge the perceptions of art and creativity in the church, from within and without. “Since college, I have been a huge fan of Ms. Rice’s works,” he told me. “I have read most of her novels. The metaphor of the vampires as outsiders, superhumanly powerful and yet tragically trapped, always living outside the boundaries of God and man…this resonated with me on many levels. I’m tickled that Anne’s renewed spirituality is taking her in an exciting new direction, but I will always defend the virtuosity of her previous works. I love her new book, and I love her old books.”

But what does Rice think of her old books? Many people in mainstream Christian would expect her to repudiate her former subject matter. As Mick Silva, an editor at the Evangelical Christian Waterbrook Press (a cousin of Rice’s publisher Knopf under the Random House umbrella) wryly put it, “The Christian publishing world is just not ready to accept a horror erotica convert who writes about Jesus killing little boys!” From my experience, he’d be right about that. (If your eyebrows are raised, he’s referring to some of Rice’s steamier previous material and the opening scene of Christ the Lord taken from the pages of the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, respectively) As I dug deeper, I discovered that the relationship between the penitent Rice and her haunting legacy was more nuanced that you might expect.