The Vampire Armand - Anne Rice [209]
At the heart of the Chronicles is my love of playing with misunderstanding. My real plunge into opposing points of view began with The Vampire Lestat, when Lestat turned the tables on the Louis of Interview with the Vampire. So to go on now to this third heroic demonic being is natural and more or less inevitable.
Q: Why did you focus on Armand, who first appeared in Interview with the Vampire?
A: It was really Armand’s turn. The only other character of great importance in Interview with the Vampire who has not told her own story is Claudia, and Claudia is not with us now. Armand is. He is still part of the Chronicles. And with his point of view, I could bring the readers up-to-date on the vampire Lestat and what has been happening to him. It all felt rather natural.
Q: The Vampire Armand travels across time and place, from ancient Constantinople, to Venice during the Renaissance, to nineteenth-century Paris and contemporary New Orleans. Why did you choose these settings?
A: Passion is the only basis I have for the choice of settings. I go where I want to be in my imagination; I go where I want to study or understand. I am fascinated by old Russia. I am in love with Italy. As for New Orleans, I live here now full time and my childhood love grows stronger every day. I do think my settings reflect my hunger for the exotic, the intense, the rich, the sensuous. But like everything else in my work, they derive from instinct and not from logic or intellectual intent.
Q: How did you research the book?
A: Research for The Vampire Armand was extensive. I did much more reading on Kiev and the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev than I ever needed for the book. But it gave me a deep experience of Russia or the Ukraine, as we call this part of the world now. As for Italy, I have been there four times now—I went right after completing Armand just to see certain paintings I had mentioned in the book—and I continue my study unendingly. I read, read, read. When I can get on a plane and go, I do. I didn’t feel I could go to Russia. But I got as close as I could through history and through gazing at reproductions of the icons so magnificently created in Russia.
Q: What are your work habits for a novel?
A: Once I truly begin to write, I work obsessively, in twelve-hour days, punctuated by days of long sleep and vivid dreaming. Starting time and ending time are no longer important. I might begin at 9 A.M., or after noon or at eight in the evening. I go from there. I turn on the computer and write, write, write.
My room is a mess. Notes are scribbled on the walls so that I can look up at them at the appropriate moments and insert the date, the name, whatever, when I need it. Books are stacked so high that people have to search for me when they come into the room. Opened books with marked-up pages are stacked on top of one another.
I become suicidal. I go through a horrid despair some time or other before the final page, during which everything seems meaningless—from the dawn of history to the very hour in which I am writing. I’m intolerable to live with. But I spread myself thin over a number of loved ones and staff members so that no one person has to put up with how intense, hysterical, and miserable I am.
When I get elated and talk fast and furiously about wonderful aspects of history or the characters, or good developments in the story, people run away from me. I don’t blame them.
While the novel is being written, I try to avoid dressing for outdoors. No one can make you go out if you don’t have shoes on. Not even in the south. I wear long velvet robes and soft velvet slippers. I refuse to go out. All food is brought in. I eat hamburgers because they are easy to hold with one hand while reading and holding the book with the other hand.
In the middle of the night I read, sometimes on the carpeted floor of the bathroom, just because it’s warm. I am wretched. I don’t care anymore about being abnormal. Writing is everything. Everything. It seems impossible to write the book. It seems