Interview with the Vampire

Interview with the Vampire is a novel by Anne Rice. She wrote it in 1973 and it was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1976. It became a cult book, and was followed by sequels; it thus is now the first book of The Vampire Chronicles.

In 1994, Neil Jordan directed a motion picture by the same name based on the story, starring Tom Cruise as Lestat, Brad Pitt as Louis, Antonio Banderas as Armand and Kirsten Dunst as Claudia.

Synopsis

In present day San Francisco, the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac tells the story of his life to a journalist. The story begins on the plantations of New Orleans where Louis is the owner of the Pointe du Lac plantation. He gets bitten by Lestat de Lioncourt who turns him into a vampire. His soul, however, survives this transformation.

Together with Claudia, a child vampire, they travel to Europe. In Paris they are confronted with a coven of vampires and their leader Armand in the Theatre des Vampires (probably a reference to the Grand guignol). These vampires want to impose their way of living on Lestat and his friends. This leads to a confrontation that kills Claudia. Louis takes revenge by burning down the theatre and all the vampires inside.