INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE - Anne Rice

No one does atmosphere like Anne Rice - never more so than in her first novel, now a genuine classic as well as a groundbreaking piece of literature that turned the vampire novel on its ear.  You'll feel as is you are in 18th-century Louisiana, where grieving plantation owner Louis - still recovering from an incalculable loss - fatefully draws the attention of the vampire Lestat, who saves Louis from death by making him one of his own.  The two roam the world, Lestat as if he owned it and Louis still trying to make sense of life and death and why it all matters, when they stumble upon a dying child, Claudia, who is also made over - now trapped forever in the body of a little girl - and this decision changes everything.  The characters, setting, even philosophical questions Rice's characters raise or abolish, it all comes across as heartbreakingly real, seductive yet horrific ... and all seen through the eyes of Louis, who centuries later recounts his tale, from page one of this extraordinary novel, to a young mortal writer.  Interview with the Vampire, well deserving its now "classic" status, is a rich tapestry of fiction that Rice has obviously poured her soul into, because you can feel it on virtually every page.  *****