“Interview With the Vampire” was at least arguably horror fiction: Although Lestat and his cronies were the heroes, their depredations did still have the power to shock, in part because there was always at least one character - the interviewer - to represent the perspective of the non-undead. The years have taken their toll in other respects. Time cannot wither nor custom stale its infinite monotony. In “Prince Lestat,” the first Vampire Chronicles novel in a decade, Rice’s queenly prose is unaltered. And over nearly four decades and many, many books, she has seen no reason to change it. That’s what all pop-culture geniuses do, in their different ways. (People had begun publication just a couple of years earlier.) Although the style, mixing celebrity-worshiping gush with Gothic portentousness, is, not to put too fine a point on it, nutty, Rice wielded it with amazing self-assurance, as if it were inevitable, something that had been waiting to be discovered. Lestat’s vampirism dates from the late 18th century, but his star quality seems very much the product of the time in which Rice gave birth to him, the 1970s: “Interview With the Vampire” reads like a People magazine profile written by Ann Radcliffe. Brooding furiously, he dominated that book, commanding it as effortlessly as he does the attention of his fellow vampires in this latest installment.
The natty vamp Lestat de Lioncourt - decked out for this occasion, a kind of worldwide blood-drinkers summit, “in a fresh and showstopping ensemble of Ralph Lauren wool plaids and pastel linen and silk” - was present at the creation of Rice’s long-running Vampire Chronicles series, which began with “Interview With the Vampire” in 1976. “What a dashing and beautiful figure Lestat was,” an elderly vampire moons at a pivotal moment in Anne Rice’s PRINCE LESTAT (Knopf, $28.95), succinctly stating the novel’s theme.
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