'Interview with the Vampire' author Anne Rice takes NPR on a tour of her haunted home

Summary

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NPR’s Book of the Day: “Interview with the Vampire” Author Anne Rice Takes NPR on a Tour of Her Haunted Home

Episode Overview

In this Halloween-themed episode, NPR revisits a 2003 interview with legendary author Anne Rice, celebrated for her gothic novels centered on vampires and the supernatural. Host Leanne Hanson visits Rice’s historic New Orleans mansion to discuss her then-latest book, Blood Canticle, muse on loss and belief, and dive into stories of haunted mirrors, tragic histories, and the real-life inspirations behind her famous characters. The result is an intimate, atmospheric portrait of Anne Rice as both creator and inhabitant of a world that blurs the line between fiction and reality.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Anne Rice’s Supernatural New Orleans Home

• [03:48] Anne Rice’s residence is a sprawling, stately Greek Revival mansion, richly decorated and suffused with New Orleans history—and, she says, ghosts.
  • Rice describes the beauty and challenge of the house:
    “I find this house beautiful, and I find it challenging. And I fell in love with it and took on the challenge. It’s huge. It’s old... It has legends. It has ghosts.” (Anne Rice, [04:08])
• The home’s mirrors date back to the 1860s, rumored to be a wedding present for Pamela Starr Clapp, whose specter is said to roam the house.
  • “They say there’s a ghost of Pamela Starr Clapp... People have claimed to see Pamela here. Yeah, I haven’t seen her. Maybe she’s happy with what we’ve done.” (Anne Rice, [04:30])
• A past owner is said to have committed suicide on the stairs, linking the home to stories of misfortune.
  • “This house has been associated with misfortune.” (Anne Rice, [05:14])

2. Life, Loss, and the Presence of Loved Ones

• Much of the interview centers on Rice’s personal losses, especially that of her husband, artist Stan Rice, who died less than a year before the interview.
  • Rice poignantly recounts Stan’s final days still making art:
    “He painted until he couldn’t lift his head anymore... He painted three paintings after the diagnosis. He died in less than four months from finding out that he had the tumor.” (Anne Rice, [07:03])
• Discussing whether Stan’s presence lingers, Rice reflects on the absorbing nature of the home and her attempt to share it with the public:
  • “There’s something overwhelming about this house itself. It can absorb anything. It can absorb any tragedy that happens and go on being itself...” (Anne Rice, [08:17])
  • Rice hosted free tours before being stopped by city officials:
    “I felt it was an obligation to show people this house.” (Anne Rice, [08:55])

3. Intimate Details: Cats, Art, and Work

• Rice’s living room is filled with Stan’s paintings—she describes their mysterious meanings and emotional resonance.
  • “Stan never told you really what a painting meant or what it was... It’s some sort of community of wonderfully diverse people.” (Anne Rice, [05:55])
• Cats—specifically, seven well-behaved Siberians—are present and noted for their intelligence and quietness.
  • “Yeah, they’re all Siberian cats. And they’re wonderful cats.” (Anne Rice, [06:30])
• Rice’s working habits are candidly revealed: writing barefoot in her flannel nightgown, her office merging directly with her bedroom for comfort and creativity.
  • “I do a lot of writing in a flannel nicu. Barefoot. I carpeted everything so I could go barefoot.” (Anne Rice, [09:49])

4. Origins of Lestat and Intersections of Life & Fiction

• Rice acknowledges her husband, Stan, as the inspiration for the alluring, amoral vampire Lestat.

  • “Lestat was the epitome of my husband, the atheist, the rational one... I got from him that spirit that infused the character of Lestat.” (Anne Rice, [11:10])
  • Even Lestat’s physical traits match Stan’s:
    “Stan was at that time six feet tall with long blonde hair... feline movements, all of that was Stan.” (Anne Rice, [11:39])

• The creation of Interview with the Vampire was marked by the mourning of her daughter’s death, and deep spiritual questioning.

  • “When I wrote that book that there was no God. What about now?”
    —“I believe there is a God. I believe that he will and can intervene at times, but that most of the time he does not...” (Anne Rice, [12:12])

5. Spirituality, Doubt, and Reconciling the Afterlife

• Rice’s spiritual journey is candid and unresolved—she returned to Catholicism after thirty years, seeking meaning and ritual, even as doubts persist.
  • “There is in me a terrible fear that life is meaningless. And that’s what Stan believed...” (Anne Rice, [12:52])
• Rice shares a moving story of a reading with psychic John Edward, feeling she had “proof of the hereafter,” but admits her rational mind persists in doubting:
  • “I wonder why my heart doesn’t totally embrace it and say, he’s there, he’s happy, he’s talked to me... It’s hard to believe in the miracle you witnessed...” (Anne Rice, [13:46])
  • She references a Biblical parable to illustrate her doubts:
    “If they don’t believe Moses and the prophets, they wouldn’t believe if a man rose from the dead. And they didn’t, and they don’t.” (Anne Rice, [14:56])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Lestat’s charisma:
  “I’m the vampire Lestat, the most potent and lovable vampire ever created... 200 years old but fixed forever in the form of a 20 year old male with features and figure you’d die for and just might.” (Anne Rice as Lestat, [02:10])

• On the haunted home:
  “People have claimed to see Pamela [Clapp] here. Yeah, I haven’t seen her. Maybe she’s happy with what we’ve done.” (Anne Rice, [04:30])

• On the ambiguity of loss and faith:
  “There’s probably no hereafter. There’s probably nothing. Do you know what I mean? … It’s hard to believe in the miracle you witnessed...” (Anne Rice, [13:46])

• On home and tragedy:
  “There’s something overwhelming about this house itself. It can absorb anything. It can absorb any tragedy that happens and go on being itself...” (Anne Rice, [08:17])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:10] Anne Rice reads as Lestat from her new novel, Blood Canticle
• [03:48] Description of Rice’s house and its haunted legacy
• [04:30] Rice recounts stories of ghosts and legends tied to her home
• [05:45] Discussion of Stan Rice’s paintings and the emotional resonance in his art
• [06:30] On her seven Siberian cats
• [07:03] Anne discusses Stan Rice’s illness and final months
• [08:17] Reflections on grief, memory, and the persistence of place
• [09:49] Rice describes her writing habits and the blending of work and domestic life
• [11:10] Lestat’s character as built from Stan Rice’s persona
• [12:12] Rice’s journey with grief, faith and meaning, including her return to the church
• [13:14] Discussion of psychic reading and persistent existential doubt

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Episode Tone & Experience

The episode is atmospheric, gently humorous, and deeply moving—combining Rice’s gothic imagination with intimate reflections on grief and belief. There’s a sense of grandeur and melancholy that suffuses both the setting and the conversation, making it a memorable listen for fans of her writing and those fascinated by the blending of the real and supernatural.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Andrew Limbong]

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong, and all this week to celebrate Halloween, we will be bringing you some of the spookiest author interviews we've got, starting with Anne Rice. You know her for her vampire books, right? In fact, we actually just chatted about Interview with a Vampire on our books. We loved limited series. Shout out to all of you for listening and check it out if you haven't heard yet. But anyway, back to Anne Rice. NPR's Leanne Hanson did this interview with her back in 2003 and she was talking about the latest Lestat novel, Blood Canticle. It was one of those interviews where Leanne went to Anne Rice's house for the taping. And usually when that happens, it's a normal interview, but in this instance they spend a few minutes talking about how Anne Rice's house is haunted. Like there's a ghost that co occupies the place. And Rice talks about it like it's any other bothersome part of home ownership, like a crack in the drywall or a leaky faucet. It's a great listen after the break.

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[Narrator]

Over the past quarter century, novelist Anne Rice has spun supernatural tales of vampires, witches and ghosts, often set in her native New Orleans. Rice gained fame in 1976 with interview with the Vampire, the first volume of her Vampire Chronicles. The book introduced Lestat, a Louisiana aristocrat made immortal by a vampire's kiss. Anne Rice still writes about Lestat, the so called brat prince of vampires. She reads from her new novel, Blood Canticle.

[Anne Rice]

I'm the vampire Lestat, the most potent and lovable vampire ever created. A supernatural knockout, 200 years old but fixed forever in the form of a 20 year old male with features and figure you'd die for and just might. I'm endlessly resourceful and undeniably charming. Death, disease, time, gravity. They mean nothing to me. Only two things are my enemy. Daylight, because it renders me completely lifeless and vulnerable to the burning rays of the sun and conscience. In other words, I'm a condemned inhabitant of eternal night and an eternally tormented bloodseeker. Doesn't that make me sound irresistible?

[Narrator]

Anne Rice lives and works in a stately Greek Revival mansion in the Garden District of New Orleans. The antebellum house is bordered by a lush garden with soaring oaks. The grounds are surrounded by a black wrought iron fence. Ornate antiques and religious sculptures decorate the interior of the house. There's also an Otis elevator install by a previous owner. In another passage from Blood Canticle, Anne Rice describes her home's double parlor.

[Anne Rice]

Quite a room. Soaring mirrors over twin fireplaces of white marble mirrors at each end, multiplying the long, shadowy chamber and its chandeliers into infinity. Aubusson carpets, are they not? And the scattered furniture, both common and fine, violating the built in division of the rooms with a great gathering area of couch and chairs beneath the central arch and beyond the long black Bosendorfer piano beneath a genteel veil of dust.

[Narrator]

Anne Rice takes a novelist's liberties with her own home. No dust gathers in this immaculate house where she has lived for 15 years, most of that time with her late husband, the poet and painter Stan Rice. Sitting on a gold satin sofa piled high with embroidered pillows, Rice describes her passion for her home.

[Anne Rice]

I find this house beautiful, and I find it challenging. And I fell in love with it and took on the challenge. It's huge. It's old. It was built in 1856. It has legends. It has ghosts.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

Really?

[Anne Rice]

Oh, yes. Apparently I don't see them, but other people have seen them.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

Ghosts of whom?

[Anne Rice]

Well, they say there's a ghost of Pamela Starr Clapp. She was the lady who got these mirrors. They were a wedding present for her in the 1860s. And she was very young at that time when she married Dr. Clapp. And she didn't die till about 1930 and she installed the Otis elevator. I mean, she lived here a long time, all the way from, you know, post Civil War prosperity, apparently, with these wedding presents, these mirrors, all the way to being able to do that Otis elevator, which still just takes us upstairs, was incredibly powerful little motor. But people have claimed to see Panela here. Yeah, I haven't seen her. Maybe she's happy with what we've done.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

I don't know any other spirits haunting the place?

[Anne Rice]

Well, the man who, who bought this house in the very beginning, who had it built, supposedly he committed suicide at the foot of the steps because he was going to lose the house. So this house has been associated with misfortune.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

As we sit and talk in the Double parlor. And your little tabby cat has been making a few appearances as we talk. Is that one of your late husband Stan's paintings?

[Anne Rice]

Yes.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

Above the sideboard?

[Anne Rice]

Yes, that's his painting. And that one there. And that one over there.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

Describe the one that we see immediately on the sideboard between the two lamps.

[Anne Rice]

You know, Stan never told you really what a painting meant or what it was. But as I see it, it's some sort of community of wonderfully diverse people. And, of course, there's the joyful little child eating ice cream. And the child is happy eating ice cream. And the king is happy. And all those things hovering behind can't harm him. That's how I see it. But I don't know how Stan would have described it.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

How many cats do you have?

[Anne Rice]

Seven.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

Well, three of them have decided to come and check us out, haven't they?

[Anne Rice]

Yeah, they're all Siberian cats. And they're wonderful cats.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

And very quiet.

[Anne Rice]

They are quiet. They live a silent life. But they. They are very intelligent.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

This must be a difficult period for you because it's been just, what, a little over a year since your husband died?

[Anne Rice]

It's not quite a year yet.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

Not quite a year.

[Sponsor Announcer]

It'll be a year.

[Anne Rice]

December 9th.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

In December. And you had finished the book just before he died?

[Anne Rice]

Right, In October.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

And he was in his house. In this house.

[Anne Rice]

He was. When I finished the book, I think he was still able to work in his studio. He was probably up on the third floor painting. He painted until he couldn't lift his head anymore. His, you know, his whole left side was paralyzed. They had him strapped in the wheelchair because he lost the ability to sit up straight. And then finally he lost the ability to hold his head up. All this from the brain tumor. And he was still tied up there, figuring some way to tie his head, get it up so he could paint. He painted three paintings after the diagnosis. He died in less than four months from finding out that he had the tumor.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

Have you dreamt about him?

[Anne Rice]

I don't think I have.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

I wondered about that because there is a scene in Blood Canticle where one of your characters say, if you dream about the dead, particularly one who was beloved, and he or she is smiling, it means that she's in heaven. And I have heard various stories, and I wondered if he. His paintings are still in his house. Is the presence still here? Is Stan still a part of this house?

[Anne Rice]

In some ways, yes, and in some ways, no. You know, we were very independent of each other in many respects. And I'm not sure that his presence is that strong in this house. There's something overwhelming about this house itself. It can absorb anything. It can absorb any tragedy that happens and go on being itself, you know, I want to bring people into it. I wish people could come and see it. I tried years ago to have free tours but the city came and said, you can't do that. You can't do it.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

The neighbors complained?

[Anne Rice]

Apparently, yes. But I felt it was an obligation to show people this house. People come to the Garden District. Tourists come. I thought they should see the interior. Why not let them see it?

[Narrator]

A grand staircase dominates the entry foyer. But naturally we took the elevator for our tour.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

What beautiful paintings in here, though.

[Anne Rice]

Yeah, it was done by a very nice man who likes to paint stuff like this. He did the ceiling beautifully, too. I was very pleased. Oh, I see. My sister changed the light. My sister goes around putting these crystal light fixtures everywhere. It really helps. Now we just open and we have arrived and there we are on the second floor.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

Now, you were known to scribble sayings on your wall.

[Anne Rice]

I was. These walls, they were covered with writing, but now they're not. And this is my place of work. The great convenience of this office is the fact that it goes right into my bedroom. Oh, yeah, I'm going to open the door. Oh, I can leave my work behind and just come in here or I can go in there in my flannel nightgown and work. I do a lot of writing in a flannel nicu. Barefoot. I carpeted everything so I could go barefoot.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

The carpet is quite sumptuous. I can feel it. Beautiful blue walls with the pink trim. And that wreath of flowers around your ceiling fan.

[Anne Rice]

Yeah, the wreath of flowers was done by the man who did the elevator paintings too. He did that on canvas. He went to a cabin, I believe, and worked on it and finished it. And then he came and put it up.

[Narrator]

Back downstairs, seated again in the double parlor Anne Rice explains the inspiration for the vampire Lestat whom she almost called Leston.

[Anne Rice]

I made a mistake. I thought I was using an old Louisiana name but later I found out the name is Leston. L, E S T A N. Leston, which would mean the Stan, my husband.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

That is. The second question Is in many ways Lestat inspired by your late husband?

[Anne Rice]

He was. Indeed he was.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

In what ways?

[Anne Rice]

Well, when I wrote an interview with the vampire I identified totally with Louis the passive one who could not deal with a life without a belief in God and a redemptive framework. And Lestat was The epitome of my husband, the atheist, the rational one, the one who said, we are what we are, we do what we do. He gave. I mean, I got from him that spirit that infused the character of Lysat. And I even physically described him as. Stan was at that time six feet tall with long blonde hair, which Stan had very full Buffalo Bill type hair. And his hands, everything, his feline movements, all of that was Stan.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

That book was written after the death of your first child from leukemia childhood. Leukemia when she was five.

[Anne Rice]

Yes, it was right afterwards.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

Yeah. You had said that when you wrote that book that there was no God. What about now?

[Anne Rice]

I believe there is a God. I believe that he will and can intervene at times, but that most of the time he does not. And that things that are unfolding do have meanings. My return to the Catholic Church was a very emotional one. It happened in 1998 after 30 years of being away. I wanted to return to communion. I wanted to return. I wanted to receive the Lord. And I believed that the miracle took place when the priest said the words, this is my body, this is my blood. And Stan agreed to marry me in the church. And that happened in December of 98. But there is in me a terrible fear that life is meaningless. And that's what Stan believed. And that's what he believed, as far as I know, right up until he died. But I don't think he discovered after death that it was meaningless. I think he discovered something else.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

And that's the mystery of it, because he can't tell you.

[Anne Rice]

Well, he can't tell me, but a very interesting thing happened. I did a reading with John Edward by phone and John the psychic. The psychic. The psychic. I know John Edward, and he spoke of Stan in the third person. He. He is so forth and so on. And the things that he told me in that reading could only have come from Stan. And he told me just precious information about Stan and where Stan was at. And basically it was proof of the hereafter. The one thing I can say that he said which really bowled me over, was stan was never able to find a place in the world you created. And it was absolutely the truth. And that reading was a very potent and astonishing thing for me. I wonder why my heart doesn't, like, totally embrace it and say, he's there, he's happy, he's talked to me, he's all right. I understand how the apostles could see Jesus walking on water and still doubt things, because this happens to you and you believe it completely. But then your rational mind says the next day it probably wasn't that way. He probably is gone. I mean, there's probably no hereafter. There's probably nothing. Do you know what I mean? It's, it's hard to believe in the miracle you witnessed as, as Luke says in the parable about Lazarus and the rich man, if they don't believe Moses and the prophets, they wouldn't believe if a man rose from the dead. And they didn't, and they don't.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

Anne Rice.

[Narrator]

Her new novel, Blood the Vampire Chronicles.

[Interviewer (Leanne Hanson)]

Is published by Knopf. Mrs. Rice, thank you so much for inviting us into your home.

[Anne Rice]

Oh, please call me Ann. And I am delighted to have you.

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