By Cassandra Szklarski
The Canadian Pres
TORONTO - Anne Rice is best known as the queen of vampire horror, but all it took was a suggestion from a friend to get her mulling over the possibilities of a werewolf tale.
From there, she says it took just 2 1/2 months to invent a saga about a pack of deadly shape-shifters with a horrifying history spanning centuries, and possibly several future books.
Rice's gothic novel "The Wolf Gift" reinvents the lupine monster by centering the action on a charismatic "Man Wolf" with a conscience.
"It was great fun to write something completely new," Rice says during a recent stop in Toronto for a day of interviews and a book reading.
"Much as I love the vampires and witches, and I'm not ruling out going back, I love doing something brand new - a new origin story, a new cosmology, a new group of immortals who have always been with us. I love it and I'd love to do more of that."
Rice's newest supernatural hero is 23-year-old reporter Reuben Golding, a blue-eyed, curly haired romantic who is attacked by a strange beast while profiling a majestic estate nestled in the ancient redwoods of northern California.
He miraculously survives its vicious bites, even growing taller, stronger and apparently healthier in the wake of a speedy recovery.
But he soon suffers strange afflictions as well, not the least of which is the nightly onset of thick body hair, a wolf-like snout and fangs, exceptional hearing, super-human strength and an eerie ability to detect human suffering and the presence of evil.
Rice notes that Reuben's transformation differs starkly from customary werewolf myths: his metamorphosis has nothing to do with the phases of the moon; rather than being painful it's a pleasurable, even orgasmic experience. Reuben also remains fully lucid as the transformation takes hold, allowing him to not only remember his luine exploits but to reason through his sometimes murderous impulses.
"If he had no moral concerns he just wouldn't interest me," says Rice, most famous for her bestselling Vampire Chronicles, which began with the 1976 bestseller "Interview with the Vampire."
"I watched a lot of werewolf movies and in most of them the hero, or the victim, doesn't remain conscious - the transformation blots out all memory, all intelligence and the werewolf just acts like a rabid beast and tears people apart and usually gets killed by the end. I had never cared for that."
The 70-year-old chuckles as she describes her monster as physically akin to the campy creature embodied by Lon Cheney in the 1941 classic "The Wolf Man" - more like a hairy goon running around with shirt and trousers on than the snarling beasts of more recent legends.
But it's Reuben's awareness of his predicament that really pushes "The Wolf Gift" into new territory, bringing in a strong spiritual dimension that Rice says highlights universal questions she has long struggled with.
Rice was raised Catholic, became an atheist and then returned to the Catholic Church in 1998. She devoted her writing entirely to her faith in 2002, exploring the life of Jesus Christ and angels in several books and penning the spiritual memoir "Called Out of Darkness" in 2008.
But she famously broke from the Church in 2010, announcing on Facebook that she had "quit being a Christian" over its opposition to homosexuality, feminism and science, among other things.
"I think the book reflects where I'm at, the questions Reuben asks are my questions," says Rice, whose conflicted protagonist reveres the writings of Jesuit theologian Teilhard de Chardin and confesses his sins to an older brother, who is a priest.
"All my books have been reflective of a lifelong spiritual quest. I don't even really think about that when I'm writing, it just happens. The characters start talking and they start talking about: 'Where do we belong morally in the scheme of things? Do we have any meaning?' ... They're going to say: 'Is there a God? Does He want me to exist? Do I have a moral role in this universe? Should I terminate my existence? What am I going to do with this power to turn into a beast and to kill people?"'
Rice says "The Wolf Gift" began with an email last spring from friend Jeff Eastin, writer/creator/producer of the specialty TV series "White Collar" on USA Network. He said he'd be interested in a werewolf tome if she ever wrote one.
That spurred Rice to craft a 40-page TV treatment describing what a werewolf-focused TV series could look like, basing her image of Reuben on the star of "White Collar," Matt Bomer.
But from there her sketch evolved into a full-fledged novel, expanding with a web of complex characters that could easily helm books of their own.
Rice notes she considered writing about werewolves before but avoided the topic out of deference to her sister Alice Borchardt, who published several books about werewolves set in ancient times.
"I didn't want to crowd her," explains Rice.
"But we lost Alice in 2007 and I felt that five years had passed and it certainly wasn't going to impact her books if I looked at the werewolf theme now. And I'm sure she would have been very encouraging if ever I wanted to do it."
Rice says she expects to tackle a sequel once she completes another supernatural novel she has in the works.
She mused on the possibility of using the "Wolf Gift" followup to merge her previous supernatural creations with the lupine world, suggesting that the Talamasca - a psychic detective group that appears in her Mayfair Witches trilogy and the Vampire Chronicles - is a natural fit for the story.
"They are supposed to be psychic detectives that are aware of everything going on in the world and their motto is: We watch and we are always here. So certainly they must be aware of the werewolves."
Rice says she didn't hold back anything for a sequel but does feel a strong pull to revisit Reuben and his friends soon.
"They're all up there waiting, they're all doing things," she says. "I'm thinking about them as if they were real, like: What are they doing now?"
"The Wolf Gift" hit bookstores this week.
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
