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Anne Rice explores another spirituality
More articles on this topic: Anne RiceOver the course of 25 novels, Anne Rice has comfortably inhabited the worlds of vampires, witches, ghosts and mummies, but her latest subject is not of the fanged, evil, supernatural sort. With Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (Knopf, $25.95), Rice has nailed shut the coffin on her Vampire and Witching chronicles as she embarks on a Christian proselytizing mission marked by good-spiritedness and a candidly liberal nature.
”The only negative reactions I have received so far are from people who don’t know my work at all and who haven’t even read the new book,” Rice says from her new California home, which overlooks the ocean. “This is because the subject is Jesus, and it seems like for the last 2,000 years whenever Jesus is a subject of discussion there has always been an argument.”
In the novel, Rice, who appears Tuesday at Books & Books in Miami Beach, writes from the perspective of a 7-year-old Jesus who brings the dead back to life and questions his elders about his immaculate conception. Casual observers may be surprised to find the author who used to emerge from coffins at book signings taking up the pen on behalf of Jesus Christ. But those familiar with her work realize how indelible Rice’s connection to the Catholic Church has been throughout her life despite the many years she spent away from it.
Rice affirms that she is not approaching this series — she is currently writing a sequel — as a novelty act. Her husband of 41 years, poet Stan Rice, died in 2002, but that’s not what prompted her renewed interest in the church. Rice says she felt an overwhelming desire to return and to put aside any questions she had about the church’s conservative political policies much earlier.
The idea to write about Jesus came while she was researching the history of Christianity and Western civilization for Memnoch the Devil, Servant of the Bones and Pandora.
”I wanted to give new life to the elements of the New Testament, such as the story of Christmas, which we have become desensitized to,” Rice says. “It was a huge challenge. Sometimes I was very scared I couldn’t do it, but I had given my word I would.”
Rice researched scholarship on the New Testament, read the texts of the Roman writers of the era and studied the history of the Middle East during the first century to offer readers an accurate portrayal of Jesus’ childhood. Although Rice’s vampire novels also have been historically accurate in terms of temporal and physical settings, Rice has publicly stated that she does not believe in vampires.
This novel is, of course, a different story.
”I want people to think about Jesus,” she says. “I want him to be so real to them that when they put down the book they can say they believe in him.”
Rice combed several translations of the Bible for a firm grasp on the way language was expressed at the time. She attempts to employ translations of Aramaic idioms and vocabulary. But perhaps the most unique and startling element of the novel is the fact that Rice writes from Jesus’ point of view.
“I had to get into the voice of the 7-year-old God. Plenty of gospels indicate that he wasn’t always aware of being God. He emptied himself, as Paul says, to take human form. He had put his knowledge away to experience being human.”
The cover of the novel depicts a Jesus different from most Western depictions of a light-skinned deity. Rice did not hesitate to picture a dark, Middle-Eastern Jesus, even in today’s political climate.
”Jesus was a Jew, and the Jews in that period were Middle Eastern. They had left Egypt several years ago, and they were definitely darker-skinned people. Actually . . .” — and you can hear Rice become excited — “it was amazing to write about riots in Jerusalem and then turn on the TV and see the same volatile crowds in Baghdad or some other Middle Eastern city.”
Rice’s prolific writing on her website, annerice.com, reflects her belief that writers cannot help but reflect the time period in which they live. Hurricane Katrina’s effects on Rice’s hometown of New Orleans has kept her busy imploring visitors to her website to send aid to New Orleans-based charities. She sold her 1860s Garden District mansion a year before Katrina hit and moved to California but remains closely connected with the area.
“The litany of stories that are still reaching me are tragic. The needs are great. Houses cannot be fixed without workers. There is no place to house these workers. It becomes frustrating and frightening.”
The New York Times recently published an editorial by Rice in which she chides people for enjoying the fruits of New Orleans’ culture without adequately returning any favors.
“Do I think racism entered into the slowness of the response? Yes. So did poverty. People perceived them as poor and this affected their mentality whether they meant it to or not. It’s a great thing that the media is sticking to this story. The people of New Orleans are counting on that.”
And perhaps because her mind falls back to the subject of resurrection, Rice believes that the people of New Orleans will prevail.
“It’s a very bad situation. But they are not going anywhere. They’ve told me so. It’s a heartbreaking and beautiful thing to watch. We are all part of God’s plan. The person who drowned in the flood had God with them just like the person who survived had God with them.”
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