Anne Rice, the beloved author who penned “The Vampire Chronicles” — which included “Interview With the Vampire” — has died. She was 80 years old.
The news was shared to Rice’s Facebook page by her son, Christopher, late Saturday night. According to Rice, his mother suffered complications after having a stroke, and died 19 years to the day after her husband, Stan.
“As my mother, her support for me was unconditional — she taught me to embrace my dreams, reject conformity and challenge the dark voices of fear and self-doubt. As a writer, she taught me to defy genre boundaries and surrender to my obsessive passions,” Christopher Rice wrote.
“In her final hours, I sat beside her hospital bed in awe of her accomplishments and her courage, awash in memories of a life that took us from the fog laced hills of the San Francisco Bay Area to the magical streets of New Orleans to the twinkling vistas of Southern California. As she kissed Anne goodbye, her younger sister Karen said, ‘What a ride you took us on, kid.’ I think we can all agree.”
Rice was best known for writing “The Vampire Chronicles,” two of which were later turned into films. “Interview With the Vampire” released in 1994, with “Queen of the Damned” hitting screens eight years later, in 2002. Many of Rice’s books beyond “The Vampire Chronicles” installments were adapted to screen.
According to her son’s post, Rice will be interred in their family’s mausoleum at Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans (where the author was born) in a private ceremony, but a public celebration of life will happen next year in the same city.
In addition to her gothic novels, Rice also wrote some religious fiction novels, called “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt” and “Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana.” And even further still, Rice wrote several erotic fiction books under the pen names Anne Rampling and A. N. Roquelaure.
“Let us take comfort in the shared hope that Anne is now experiencing firsthand the glorious answers to many great spiritual and cosmic questions, the quest for which defined her life and career,” Christopher included in his post.