Last week, I reviewed Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles: An Alphabettery. This brand-new A to Z compendium tells you everything you could want to know about any person, place, or thing mentioned in Rice’s popular vampire series. But who took the time to painstakingly compile all this information, and how did they become such an expert on Rice’s extensive fictional world? The Alphabettery was written by Becket, a close friend of Anne Rice who served as her personal assistant from 2005 to 2017. I reached out to Becket and he was kind enough to send back some detailed and thoughtful replies about what it was like working with his idol and writing the definitive guide to her most prominent series. Read on for our interview. Also, be sure to scroll to the bottom of the post and enter the giveaway to win your own copy of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles: An Alphabettery!
What originally drew you the Vampire Chronicles books?
The year was 1991 and I was in the 9th grade in a Catholic high school. During my history class in the morning, a friend turned around to me and slipped a book under the desk, whispering, “Read this. You’re going to love it!” She was right. The book was Interview with the Vampire and I had never read anything like it before. When I was finished, I sought for every Anne Rice novel that I could find, beginning with the Vampire Chronicles, which had only reached up to The Queen of the Damned at that time. Barnes & Noble was about a year away from becoming the definitive bookselling superstore, so I had to check the books out at the library, and return them only after an egregious fee, because I kept reading and rereading them, wearing their dog-eared pages down to a papyrus texture. Not one thing drew me to Anne Rice’s novels. She wrote her fiction in a creative nonfiction way, focusing on historical accuracy while also allowing her characters to organically leap off the page. I’d never read anyone who had written supernatural fiction with such soul-searching depth. I was immediately hooked.
Can you tell us about how you first came to work for Anne Rice and what being her personal assistant entailed?
Anne and I first met in 2000. I was a Roman Catholic monk in a Benedictine monastery just north of New Orleans, at St. Joseph Abbey. Anne’s book Merrick had just been released and there was a major book signing at her First Street house in the Garden District. She wanted a harpsichord to be performed during the book signing. Discovering that my monastery had a harpsichord, she gave us a substantial check to rent it. My abbot (the head of the monastery) knew that I was the only one on the property who had any training in tuning and performing on harpsichord, so he asked me to transport it from the monastery to the book signing. Meeting Anne was a day that I’ll never forget. I was escorted into her bedroom where she was struggling to put a bracelet on the wrist of one of her many dolls in her collection. The first words I heard from her were, “Eyes! I need someone with good eyes.” For some reason, people turned and looked at me, so I said, “I have good eyes.” Then I knelt down at her feet and helped her put the bracelet on the doll that was resting on her lap, while someone said, “This is Becket. He’s the monk from the monastery.”
Anne and I developed an email rapport that lasted for the next five years. Then in 2005, after much prayer, right before I was given the choice to make solemn vows to the monastery (a lifelong commitment), I discerned that I desired to reenter lay life and find the woman who eventually became my wife. I emailed Anne to inform her of this decision and closed the email with a little joke: “P.S. Do you have any room on your staff for a former monk with a Master’s degree in theology?” She wrote back: “YES!” And so I moved out to California where she was living (this was only months before Katrina hit New Orleans) and I began working for her as her assistant. Some aspects of the job included traveling with her on book tours as well as reading her latest novel as soon as she had completed it.
What was the writing process like for Alphabettery? How many times did you have to reread through the Vampire Chronicles books?
My own writing process for my other books always began with a very detailed outline. It was similar for the Alphabettery. I established very strict rules, such as: the characters mentioned, no matter how minor, they get a place in the Alphabettery. That rule extended into titles for characters and aliases, honorifics and sobriquets. Some characters mentioned in the Alphabettery are actually crossovers from the Lives of the Mayfair Witches, such as Lasher, Rowan Mayfair, Julian Mayfair, and many more, which makes for a touch of irony, since the Alphabettery begins with Aaron Lightener, a minor character in the Vampire Chronicles, but a major character in the Mayfair Witches. Basically, if the Vampire Chronicles mention a vampire character, a vampire power, a sanctuary, a mortal, an immortal, a nickname, a witch, it gets put in the Alphabettery. I wanted to make it as exhaustive as possible both for myself as a fan, as well as for all of Anne’s fans. So, yes, I had to read and reread Anne’s Vampire Chronicles several times, but I also had to read and reread The Lives of the Mayfair Witches too, because many characters and themes crossed over in a number of books.
Which parts of the Alphabettery were most challenging to write?
The most challenging part of the Alphabettery were briefly mentioned characters. Another rule that I established for myself was that I wanted the Alphabettery to give a chronological account of characters’ lives. Amel, for instance, some of his life is recounted in The Queen of the Damned, more of his life is revealed in Prince Lestat, and even more of his life is revealed in Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis. When we meet Amel in 1989, we know nothing of his mortal existence thousands of years earlier, not until we come to Anne’s later books; we only know that he is a spirit, not that he was a mortal, not that he was abducted, not even that he was genetically enhanced; so I wrote this Alphabettery to be a collection of characters’ biographies, which means that I had to take Amel’s earlier life in later books, as well as his later life in earlier books, and make it all linear. That was challenging. But there are other characters whose beginnings and definitive ends are a mystery, such as Tim and Russ, members of the Fang Gang. Crafting entries for them without any biographical structure was the most challenging part, not because of any literary difficulty, but because of my own personal fandom for Anne, wanting to know more about these characters. Yet, when I asked Anne for more information about them, she would just give a knowing smile and say, “That’s all that’s known about them… so far.”
Who is your favorite Vampire Chronicles character? Why?
That’s such a difficult choice! I love them all for different reasons. I love Marius because of his rational stoicism. I love Pandora because of her courage and passion. I love Louis because of his introspective disposition. I love Gabrielle because of her detachment. They all sort of make up my own interests in life. I seek to be rational and stoical, I hope to be courageous and passionate, I love to be introspective, and I always try to be detached.
The Vampire Chronicles have sustained a steady fan base for over four decades—keeping fans interested enough to read fifteen books and now a full encyclopedia of the Vampire Chronicles world. Why do you think this particular series of books has resonated with so many people and been so enduring?
Unlike other supernatural fiction writers, Anne has an incomparable way of commingling philosophy, history, existentialism, beauty, social justice into a sumptuous tapestry wherein her characters discover meaning in their suffering, joy in their unique fellowship, and a profound ability to overcome the most difficult challenges in life by having faith in a power greater than themselves. Their own supernatural strengths and abilities are fun to read about, such as the Fire Gift or the Cloud Gift; but many novels nowadays have characters with superhuman abilities, even vampires. Anne’s novels transcend all of that, partly because they have inspired all that, but also because her characters, deep down inside, are all struggling to defeat the one enemy that not even the strongest vampire in the world can overcome—the enemy of loneliness. Anne’s characters defeat that enemy not with preternatural abilities, but with love—love for one another, love for the beauty of life.
On this blog, I like to discuss classic works of Gothic/horror literature and how they influence contemporary writing. What is your favorite piece of classic vampire literature? Do you see that piece reflected in The Vampire Chronicles in any way?
Varney the Vampire is one of my favorites, not necessarily in the beginning of the serials, but closer towards the end where we start to see him become more of a sympathetic character. The same can be said of Polidori’s The Vampyre, where we also see the emergence of the Byronic hero. Louis is the first vampire of twentieth century literature to embody that Byronic heroism and become one of the greatest sympathetic characters in the entire Vampire Chronicles.
Lastly, I know that you’re a long-time author in your own right. Do you have another book that you’re working on next?
I’m always working on another book. However, alas, it’s a long practice of mine to not talk about my projects until they’re finished. But it’s set in New Orleans because it’s my home, in my heart of hearts.
But for my last words in this interview, I would simply like them to be: Thank you, Anne Rice, for the Vampire Chronicles. Thank you for all your books. Thank you for asking me to write the Alphabettery. Thank you for changing my life, and the lives of so many people, for the better. We all love you!
On that note, if you’re a hardcore fan of The Vampire Chronicles, you definitely don’t want to miss out on this meticulously compiled cosmology! Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles: An Alphabettery is available in stores now. You can also enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below for a chance to win a copy! (U.S. entrants only, please.) You have until November 5 to enter. A winner will be chosen and announced on November 6.